


this town is gonna eat you

by Vamppeach



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (there is also actual lube), Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Vampires Are Known, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Blood Drinking, Come as Lube, Dom/sub Undertones, Everyone in this fic is a snake lmaooo, Hair-pulling, Hand Jobs, Intrigue, Loose prequel to a favorite RP!, M/M, Masturbation, Multiple Orgasms, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Overstimulation, Rough Sex, Vampires as Monsters, i cannot believe I'm using that tag but here i fucking am, this whole fic is style over substance. please adjust your expectations accordingly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:00:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 43,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27714439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vamppeach/pseuds/Vamppeach
Summary: Ushijima is a vampire; Oikawa has a question.All motives are ulterior.
Relationships: Goshiki Tsutomu/Tendou Satori, Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Oikawa Tooru/Ushijima Wakatoshi
Comments: 123
Kudos: 206





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just something small to post while I work on my big WIP. Enjoy!

The club is busy, for a Thursday night, but Ushijima cuts through the crowd without effort. Other vampires know to get out of his way, even the ones who are young and stupid, drunk on inebriated blood. Humans avoid him on instinct, like rabbits hearing movement in the underbrush, deer smelling gunpowder on the air, humans smelling blood. Tendou is busy chatting up some human while absently spinning a tumbler, more interested in playing around than serving drinks. That's fine. Bartending is just a front; Tendou's real strength is information. Ushijima doesn't have the patience for people, not for young vampires and certainly not humans, but with the right coaxing, humans know surprisingly useful things. Then it’s just a matter of application. 

He isn't sure how useful the kid with a bowl cut could be, though. Mostly, he just looks like Tendou's type. 

_ Annoying.  _ Ushijima raises his arm for Tendou's attention, but before he can complete the gesture, something taps him on the shoulder.

"I heard…" Says the man beside him, a faint slur in his voice. Ushijma glances over and finds a human, absently twirling a glass in his hands with long, manicured fingers. The contents are a vibrant, nauseating blue. The man tips his glass back, tips his head back, exposes the long pale line of his throat. He swallows, and swallows, and swallows until his glass is empty. The whole display feels distinctly deliberate.

"You heard," Ushijima repeats, distantly aware this human is trying to flirt.

The human licks sugar from his glass then sets it aside to look at him. His hair frames his face in waves, his loose purple shirt cut into an attractive V at his collar, revealing defined collarbones. His throat is unmarred. 

But before all that, Ushijima notices his eyes: Brown, almost black in the shifting lights, and entirely absent of his drunken affect. Instead they are sharp, like copper honed to killing points.

"I heard," Brown Eyes licks his lips, "That vampire venom is an aphrodisiac. That true?" 

So that's what this is. 

Ushijima doesn't have the  _ time. _

"Don't ask me," he says flatly, and tries again to flag down Tendou, who is either deliberately ignoring him at this point, or hoping to take Bowl Cut back for a bite.

Brown Eyes is not discouraged. "But you're  _ the _ vampire. Why wouldn't I ask you?"

That's something. Ushijima raises an eyebrow, turning his attention from Tendou to the human.  _ "The  _ vampire." 

"What, like it's hard?” Brown Eyes snorts, answering his unasked question. “You're here, but you're not drinking." 

"Maybe I don't drink."

"Hmm, yeah, I did think about that. But you're at a dance club." Brown Eyes looks him up and down. Strange, to find himself on the other side of a look like that, sized up like a cut of meat. There is no hint of drunkenness in that look; it is an act, like a kitten crying for pathos.  _ Underestimate me,  _ says his voice.  _ I am weak, weakened, I am not a threat.  _ Ushijima wonders if he wears the act on purpose, or if it is merely instinct and if so, where he learned it. 

"Hmm." 

"And you're not dressed for clubbing - so many _ layers!  _ You look like a businessman who wandered into the wrong building. Expect you've been here for  _ hours."  _

"I enjoy the ambiance."

Brown Eyes laughs, loud and quick and half-feral, like a hyena. It is not a particularly attractive laugh.

He likes it. 

"I bet you do!" He runs a hand through his hair, shoulders still hitching with little bursts of laughter. "All the other vampires refuse to look you in the eye. I bet that feels good."

Perceptive, for a human. Ushijkma decides the drunk act must be on purpose. He still cannot decide if he would like to play along. 

"So, you understand I am dangerous." 

"If I have a question about vampires, it's only natural I ask the biggest, baddest vampire I can find." He smiles, objectively brilliant except that it does not reach his eyes. Nothing reaches this man’s eyes. 

That, he thinks, is beautiful. 

"My friends say they're dangerous too, but they're full of shit." 

What the hell does that mean? 

Ushijima leans into the human's personal space and picks out his scent: First sugar-sweet, drenched in alcohol, and cologne beneath that. It tickles the back of his throat, and tells him nothing. Beneath that, blood. Human. Ushijima cannot discern anything more. Maybe a werewolf could find something useful, but unlike a wolf, Ushijima does not hunt by scent. He has other strengths. 

"Your name." 

A light goes on behind those brown, brown eyes, excitement seeping through. It is a familiar feeling: A hunt taking its bait. What game does this human think he's playing, where a vampire is his prize?

"I'm Oikawa Tooru." 

"Ushijima. It is." 

Oikawa blinks rapidly, light flickering into confusion. Ushijima lights up in response. He nearly grins. 

"Your question," he clarifies. "It is." Aphrodisiac and sedative, sweeping through the body and gone just as fast.

"Oh." That light settles into a smolder. It goes well with Oikawa's eyes, his flushed cheeks (blooded,  _ alive). _

Ushijima spares a glance toward Tendou. He has a hand on Bowl Cut's wrist atop the counter now, angled deliberately so Ushijima cannot catch his eye. He glances back at Oikawa, tastes the cologne on his tongue and wonders,  _ What game are you playing? _ He's going to find out. 

"You're here to experience it for yourself." 

Oikawa grins with all his teeth. "I wondered when you'd ask." 

Maybe  _ this  _ is the game Oikawa was playing at. If so, does this result count as a win? And for who? Ushijima did not come here to feed, but he is walking away with a meal. Perhaps this is a game with no losers.

But Ushijima does not believe in win-win scenarios. Someone always gets stepped on, and someone is always prey. "I wasn't asking." 

“Neither was I.”

* * *

Tendou's office overlooks the dance floor. The back wall is nothing but an enormous panel of tinted glass, dimming the play of colored lights coming up from below. It paints the space as something muted and surreal. The lights shift between blue and purple and red. Music thumps beneath their feet, soft enough that in here, Ushijima can distinguish Oikawa's heartbeat from the noise. The office is not exactly a proper work environment, but he knows Tendou only ever uses this space to entertain. 

Ushijima locks the door behind them. If Tendou wants to entertain, it won't be here. 

"This isn't a VIP suite," Oikawa says, once the door is shut.

"No." Ushijima removes his blazer and drapes it over Tendou's desk chair, then turns to watch the crowd below. He is not one for throngs of people, but he can see the appeal of a space like this: Above it all, removed and in control. 

Oikawa looks balefully at the desk between them. "We're in an office." 

Ushijima wonders if Oikawa always states the obvious, or if it's an anxious habit. 

"There's a sitting area." 

"What are you, the  _ owner?" _

"Something like that." He does not own the club, but he owns Tendou's loyalty, and among their kind, that might as well be one and the same. Not that a human would understand, even one as observant as Oikawa Tooru. 

"Hm." Oikawa drapes himself into the couch, arms spread on either side of its back. He makes quite the picture, in this lighting. In any lighting. His heartbeat fills the room, rabbit-quick with anxiety or anticipation he cannot tell. No real matter. Ushijima already knows he doesn't care. 

(For what it's worth, he thinks it is anticipation.) 

"What a mysterious answer. That's annoying." 

Ushijima walks away from the window to join him, stopping just beside the couch. Like this, the difference in their height is immense. 

"I am not here to answer your questions." 

"You're not?" Oikawa grins, fists a hand in his shirt and yanks with surprising force, strength hidden in what looked so much like just a pretty frame. Thrilling, in a way, to underestimate a human - it happens so rarely. Still, Oikawa is  _ only  _ human. Ushijima growls, allows himself to bend, knee landing on the edge. From there he allows no more, forcing Oikawa to crane his neck and bow his back to kiss him. 

And Oikawa _ kisses. _ His lips are hot. The fist gripping his shirt is hot, tense against his chest. All of him is hot. He is  _ alive, _ and wants with all the fervor of a living thing. He demands. This human especially is greedy, hand a firm palm against his chest, hot through his shirt, the other snaking up to hold the back of his neck- 

Ushijima gets a hand on Oikawa's chest, muscle hitching beneath, heart hammering, intoxicating and for a moment it is so intoxicating that he barely moves. Then the hand at his neck turns to nails, and- 

He growls, shoving Oikawa away from him, away from his neck, away from _vulnerable._ Oikawa's neck lands hard against the couch, audible even above bass radiating through the floor. For a moment Oikawa sits dazed, lips swollen, mouth parted in a perfect, confused  _ O.  _

That, he knows, is not an act.  _ I am weak, I am weakened. _ It is real, this time. Ushijima swallows. 

Oikawa looks up at him, eyes wide and pupils blown, brows high- then furrowed, scowling. "Haven't you heard of foreplay?"

"Not necessary." 

Oikawa shudders bodily, eyes fluttering. "Then get down here." 

Ushijima does not take orders, but- 

He obliges. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this instead of working on my paper

Ushijima wraps a preemptive arm around Oikawa's waist. Slender, but without give; his shape gives the impression of fragility, but the firm lines betray muscle underneath. With the other he fists Oikawa's hair to angle his neck into position.

He needn't have bothered. Every inch of Oikawa speaks invitation. Take me, his body says, chest arched against him, neck tilted purposefully to the side. He wonders if the invitation reaches Oikawa's eyes, but does not pull away to look. The thought is enough.

He tightens his hold on Oikawa's waist, and accepts.

One can learn a lot from how a human takes the bite. Ushijima learns this: 

Oikawa Tooru is the kind of man who grits his teeth and takes it. 

The first moments are often the most dangerous. Even willing prey struggles. Humans are still animals: living things intent to remain living. Oikawa, though.

Oikawa holds his breath and stills.

Moments later he exhales, then slumps, almost lifeless if not for his hummingbird heart, his panting breath, and- 

_"Ah!"_ A short, startled gasp. Ushijima would have laughed, if his mouth was not already full. Willing prey or not, experienced or new, pleasure always takes them by surprise. The body knows it is in danger. The body knows such a thing should not bring one to the edge of bliss. Even the werewolves, railing against being brought to heel, fully aware of a vampire's power, take to the pleasure with alarm. 

Oikawa keens. Ushijima tastes it in his blood.

He closes his eyes. He swallows. Salt skin chemical cologne, blood, blood, _blood_. The body shifts beneath him, but its neck remains in position, and that is all he cares for even as the keening crescendos into moans, as the body beneath him twitches. His fangs dislodge, but his mouth remains fixed on the wound. He swallows, he swallows, he swallows. 

The room returns in pieces from where it narrowed to the bleeding body beneath him. Muted music thumps atop the heartbeat, a driving rhythm that spurs Ushijima to coherence. He leans back and opens his eyes. 

Below him, Oikawa lay panting. At some point, he'd taken himself in hand. Cum darkens the hem of his shirt, palm slick. Ushijima swallows. He cannot smell Oikawa's cologne anymore, only salt-sex-sweat and his blood still running a trail down his neck. Ushijima leans back in to catch the drop, then licks the wound shut. Consensual feedings behind closed doors are perfectly legal, so long as there are no bodies. And it would be a shame if Oikawa Tooru were to end so prematurely, even if he did lack a sense of preservation. Perhaps because he lacks it. 

Oikawa works his mouth. The moments after are always so fascinating. The prey holds onto consciousness, but weakened beyond coherence. Blood loss and venom. It will work through his system, in time. Ushijima disentangles himself from Oikawa's body and stands. He wipes his mouth, but his palm comes away clean. Oikawa is not his typical prey; feedings are usually much messier. 

"It will wear off," he tells him. Oikawa's mouth stops moving, but his gaze sharpens, just enough that Ushijima is left to wonder if it sharpened at all. "Sleep." 

Oikawa's eyes slip shut. If he had not been at his mercy before, he is now, and that is- 

Ushijima swallows thickly. Oikawa is undone. His shirt rucked up from his waist, jeans riding low, revealing defined pelvis. Light from the window catches on the cum drying to his skin. Some memory of arousal sparks in his blood. Twice Oikawa takes him by surprise. 

_A game with no losers._

Ushijima finishes putting himself back together and makes his way to Tendou's desk, where his computer lay dormant. There is work to be done. Ushijima intends to win. 

* * *

"Mn." Oikawa wakes to a room of blurred edges, with something soft at his back and an awful crick in his neck. He blinks, willing the ceiling into solid shapes. It doesn’t take.

"You're awake," someone says.

The night snaps back into focus. The club. The vampire. Ushijima. Blood. Cum. Oikawa is suddenly, viscerally aware of his body and suddenly, viscerally uncomfortable.

He sits up slowly. The room spins, but the edges stay firm. A victory, he decides. "What time is it?" His mouth feels like cotton, tongue leaden and dry. 

"Nearly morning. Call someone to pick you up," Ushijima answers, skipping the pretense of pleasantry. _That's it_ , Oikawa thinks. Ushijima sends him on his way and the whole evening is a wash, with nothing to show for it but an orgasm, vertigo, bruised skin, an aching neck.

But failure isn't an option. He tries, "Get me something to eat."

Ushijima narrows his eyes, light glinting off the surface like an animal's. Oikawa gets a flash of Iwaizumi, wolfish eyes reflecting light in that same way. 

Oikawa presses: "That, or I'll pass out in your elevator." He leans back into the couch, stretching his arms across the back. He tilts his neck, smiles coy. It worked before.

Ushijima gets up from his seat.

What a thrill, to enthrall an animal like him. Oikawa watches him go. 

"A bottle of water too!" 

He shouts after him, then holds his breath. The door swings shut and Oikawa strains to hear Ushijima retreating down the hall, into the elevator, but can distinguish nothing above the music throbbing from below. Maybe Iwaizumi could have heard something, but Oikawa is only human; his senses, only human. Iwaizumi would have been better at this part. _He_ isn't human. But he also wouldn't have made it through the front door. A werewolf like him would be killed on arrival, or worse. 

Same for him, if he's not careful. Oikawa mentally counts the steps down the hall, waits a second longer, then gets to his feet. 

The floor slips from under him. He goes down, narrowly twisting to avoid hitting his head into the table and hitting the couch instead. Lucky, considering how much blood he lost. Gave. _Wanted to give._

If Ushijima doesn't kill him, Iwaizumi might, when he finds that out. 

Oikawa braces one hand on the couch, his other on the table, pushes up and gets a foot underneath him-

Pain shoots through his right leg, radiating from his knee. Oikawa's hand darts to his mouth; he bites down on his knuckle to keep his cry quiet. He must have twisted it wrong while trying to avoid hitting himself on the table, aggravating that old injury. Now it's seized up on him. _Of all the times for his knee to give out-_

He has no idea when Ushijima will be back. These aren't seconds he can waste. 

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Oikawa stands again. The room keeps spinning, but the floor stays steady. That's enough. 

One hand fishing to his jeans pocket, the other outstretched to keep himself balanced, Oikawa limps to the desk housing Ushijima's computer. He hopes it's his. Useless to them, otherwise. 

He braces himself against the desk and fishes a USB from his back pocket. Hanamaki's spyware shouldn't take long to install; it won't connect to a network, so he'll have to come back for it, but the file is small and unnoticeable. 

And yet Oikawa's heart beats in his throat. Adrenaline shouts in his ear, dizzying, more dizzying than the blood loss. 

The USB begins its transfer. Oikawa tries to breathe.

Behind him, that enormous glass window casts technicolor, shifting shadows. While he waits, he watches the crowd. Ushijima's computer tells him they're approaching four in the morning, but the dancefloor is packed, bar overflowing. Plenty of prey to choose from, but Ushijima took _him._

Just over the music: _ding._

The elevator. Oikawa flicks anxiously between watching the download and watching the door. _Several seconds remaining._

Footfalls down the hall. 

The couch where Ushijima left him sits across the room. The pain in his knee radiates down into his calf, now. If he turns his head too fast, the room still spins. He couldn’t make it back to the couch if he tried. And he does not have the time to try.

The download finishes. Oikawa rips the USB from its port, proper removal procedure be damned, and shoves it back into his pocket. 

The doorknob twists. 

Oikawa searches the desk for something, anything, _any_ excuse, and grabs the first pen he finds. 

Ushijima enters. 

"Oikawa." His voice is just as icy as it was earlier that night, when he told him, _I wasn't asking._

Oikawa twists to face the door. Light from the hall casts Ushijima as an enormous shadow, face invisible in the dark except for his _eyes,_ reflective, animal and _hungry-_

Oh. Oh, Ushijima can hear his heartbeat, can't he? His pulse, spurred wild by adrenaline. He'll have to explain that. 

Oikawa starts with his most brilliant smile. "It's exciting, isn't it?" 

The door swings shut, and the room is dim again. Ushijima's features seem built for dark rooms. Even as a mortal, he'd strike an imposing figure. And he is, most assuredly, _not_ mortal.

Despite himself, Oikawa shudders, and turns back to the window. He needs to sell this. "Exciting to be above all these people. I bet you like to watch." It slips from his mouth so easily, cool observation and flirtation rolled into one.

He's accomplished what he came here to do. All he needs is to get out. And yet he finds himself eager to continue this dance. Eager. _Eager. Eager for Ushijima's hand on his waist. For his fangs in his neck. Eager, eager._

A real hand on his waist, not imagined, startles Oikawa from that thought. "I do," Ushijima says into his ear, breath cold enough for goosebumps, lips close to his neck, so _close-_

Oikawa's leg gives out for the second time that night. Instead of collapsing to the floor he finds himself pressed into the window, held up but also pinned against the glass. The moment stretches on for eons, Oikawa's breath steaming the glass, Ushijima's hand unyielding on his back. Reflected in the window, Ushijima is nothing but a shadow once again. 

God, his leg hurts. Something bubbles in his chest, claws at his tongue and begs to come out. He thinks it might be a whimper. He's not sure what for, and swallows it down. 

"Something you want to watch?" 

Like that, it ends. Ushijima eases away from him, and Oikawa remains on his feet. 

"Your food." Ushijima sets a bottle of water and orange on the desk. He recalls seeing a few drinks with orange slices garnishing the side.

Oikawa _laughs_. All that adrenaline leaves him in a rush; he pulls out the desk chair and sits, still laughing, weak and dizzy and struck manically breathless by the sheer absurdity of this all. "I wasn't sure if you'd actually bring me something." He starts peeling the orange, then pauses to hold up the pen he grabbed in desperation. "Do you have paper? I'm giving you my number." 

"I'm not interested in repeat bleeders." 

" _Bleeder!_ Ouch, Ushijima, that’s cold. We had more fun than that." The words taste sick-sweet in his mouth, more truth than he'd like on all counts. He is a bleeder. He had fun. He needs to do this again regardless, but he wants to, and that. Well. 

"Do you need me to call a car?" Ushijima says slowly. It is not a request. 

Oikawa waves him off, spins in his chair, and tears a page from a desktop calendar. He'll have to come back and retrieve that virus at some point, and what a perfect excuse. He scribbles down his number, folds it, and winds an arm around Ushijima's waist to slip it into his back pocket. "There. I'll call someone to get me now. So _impatient.”_

He gets out his phone, and calls Iwaizumi. 

It rings once, then connects. 

"Oikawa!” Iwaizumi, all worked into a frenzy. “Where have you _been?"_

Oikawa flicks his gaze to Ushijima. Iwaizumi's worry is loud enough that even if Ushijima was mortal, he could probably hear it. At least the room has stopped spinning.

"I found company for the night," he drawls. "I'm still kind of drunk, though, can you-"

"Oh," Iwaizumi says softly. "Shit." He gets the message. "Did you get-" 

"Pick me up, pretty please?" 

"On my way." A beat. "Are you okay? Did you run into-" 

"I'm good." For no one's benefit, Oikawa grins. "I'm _great."_

Before Iwaizumi can say anything too damning, Oikawa ends the call. 

"There's a private elevator," Ushijima says after a moment. 

Oikawa peels off a section of orange and chews slowly. "I get we're done here, but I have to eat this." 

Ushijima shakes his head. "You can avoid the crowd, and it’s shorter. I'll take you." 

For his leg? Blood rushes to his cheeks; the room spins one last time.. Somehow, Ushijima's care feels more dangerous than his hunger. "Alright." He picks up the bottle of water, his unfinished orange, and offers his free hand to Ushijima. "Take me." 

During the elevator ride, Oikawa plans. He can use the water bottle to wash his stomach, dump the rest on his head and get rid of the sweat. He blinded Ushijima’s nose by applying all that cologne, but he’s sweat it all off by now, and Iwaizumi’s nose is stronger, regardless. Maybe the orange peel could cover up what he can’t wash away.

Iwaizumi doesn’t need to know about how he managed to do what he came to do. He _is not_ keeping secrets. But he is loath to give Iwaizumi another opportunity to fret over him.

He might be human, but he isn’t weak. 

The elevator leads directly into a private parking garage, populated by a handful of luxury cars. No windows, like a lot of the buildings in this part of the city. Oikawa texts Iwaizumi where to pick him up and waits. 

Ushijima stays, hand hovering at his side.

"I can stand on my own," Oikawa says firmly, not looking at Ushijima. Sound echoes in this architecture, making the statement louder than it needed to be.

The hand on his waist retreats. 

Oikawa cracks his water bottle, and takes several long swallows. Not a performance, this time. He’s dehydrated and hungry. 

Mid-swallow, a thumb swipes across his adam's apple. Oikawa chokes and yanks the bottle away from his mouth. 

"You do that a lot,” Ushijima says, once he’s stopped coughing.

_“Do what?”_

"Show your neck." 

"Hm." He licks lips, cracked with dehydration. That evening he made a pretty picture. Every hair in place. Flattering clothes. Pretty neck. Now his neck aches, his hair is matted with sweat, his clothes a mess. 

"It's dangerous." 

It occurs to Oikawa that they are alone. 

Confidently, he says, "I think it worked out." 

Ushijima grabs his wrist, "It won't always." 

Oikawa yanks back. No budge. 

"You knew I am dangerous." An echo of their earlier conversation, and then he lets go. 

_That'll bruise,_ Oikawa thinks. It thrills him. He grins at Ushijima, something sharp and coy on his lips- 

Something knocks the wind out of him. One moment stood in the center of that desolate garage/ The next: head snapped against the concrete wall, fist in his hair. 

In his ear, Ushijima says, “You court danger and it will kill you.”

And he bites. 

Oikawa cries out, throat already hoarse from mere hours ago. His cry echoes oddly and he cannot tell if that’s the architecture’s fault or the stars crowding in his vision.

Pleasure hits him faster this time. Or maybe he just knows what to expect, or maybe there is venom still in his system, maybe he wanted this and maybe it doesn’t matter. In the next moment he arches, exhausted and hurting and _hard,_ already. The pain from his leg is muted, muffled, wrapped in cotton like the rest of his senses. There is only Ushijima’s weight and his mouth, the sweet sting of fangs, blood hot on his neck and the concrete cold on his back, the rest of him steadily cooling, cooling. He shudders. He thinks he might moan. 

Ushijima strokes the opposite side of his neck. 

In the distance, an engine revs. Light coats the inside of his eyelids. Oikawa opens them and squints into headlights. 

The weight holding him disappears. The car’s door swings open; a familiar, friendly shadow. 

“Hey, Iwa-chan.” Oikawa steps toward him. Sways. Ushijima nowhere to be found. That’s fine. That’s good, actually. He doesn’t want them to fight. He wants to come back here. He has to, anyway. Part of the mission. 

_“Oikawa,”_ Iwaizumi catches him. Oikawa means to stand on his own, but Iwaizumi is comfortable. “You _idiot._ You’re-” 

“Human,” Oikawa finishes. Iwaizumi helps him into the passenger seat, which hardly seems necessary, but Iwaizumi is always like this, patronizing. “You don’t have to keep reminding me I’m weak.” 

“I never called you weak.” They pull out onto the road. Oikawa is too tired, too light-headed, to follow the route Iwaizumi takes. 

“Where are we going?” 

“I’m taking you home.” 

“Not to the den?” 

“Hell no. Everyone not looking for you is there, and if they see you like this they’ll want blood.” Iwaizumi’s hand tightens on the steering wheel. “ _I_ want-” He growls, eyes flashing in a streetlamp. How does Oikawa tell him he saw those same eyes tonight, on a different man? On someone who, like Iwaizumi, is not a man at all? 

“Who did this to you?” 

_He didn’t see,_ Oikawa realizes. Somehow that relieves him. “One of the staff,” he lies. “I needed a reason to be there, so…” He lifts his hand to make a dismissive gesture, but even that feels like an effort. It flops back onto his knee. 

“So you did it?” 

Oikawa summons the effort to turn his head, and grins. “I did.”

Iwaizumi grins back at him. “You _did_ it!” Excitement, immediately dimmed. “I’m sorry you had to- That one of them- _Fuck.”_

How does he explain there is nothing to be sorry for? 

Finally, something he can do that Iwaizumi can’t. Finally something he is _good_ at. 

“I’ll do better next time."

He is, in fact, looking forward to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I said finishing this wasn't a priority but the first chapter got such a nice reception I was aaaaaaa. I thrive off comments <3 And, this was a nice break from my other responsibilities. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3: Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a turn

There is a body somewhere in his forest. 

Hardly a forest. The city encroaches ever outward. Iwaizumi's land is little more than a strip of trees, left standing only to protect buildings from the gales that pick up over endless farmland. It is not a forest. It is a joke. 

but it is _his,_ and Iwaizumi smells blood. 

He rushes toward the stench, nose to the air, each leap churning his stomach sicker than the last. But he cannot afford to slow, or shift. Something is dead in his forest. Something is _dead_ in _his_ forest and that can only mean-

_A heartbeat._

Iwaizumi stutters, paw catching on a root as his stomach drops from under him and deep into the earth, sick with relief and sick with panic and there is no more time to worry. The body is there, its back against a tree, bleeding from its head, two of its legs bent at an impossible angle. Its fur would be beautiful, brilliant tawny orange if not for all the dirt and blood. 

Skidding to a halt, Iwaizumi approaches the wolf slowly; cornered dogs only know how to bite. But the wolf barely stirs. Its abdomen (-white sliver of bone glistening amongst the mud-) jerks in shallow, wheezing breaths. It will die, without help. This wolf is a stranger, but- 

Something sends Iwaizumi hard into the dirt. He rolls, gets his bearings in time to realize the wolf atop him. Enormous, all black, orange eyes the only thing visible in the early moonlight- 

and then it is gone, Iwaizumi sprawled in the grass. In the corner of his eye: The black wolf, bent over that broken body, licking at its ruined neck, whimpering soft assurances. 

Iwaizumi rights himself. He stays the distance, huffs once for the black wolf's attention. It turns its head, muzzle contorted in a snarl. Only then does he notice the blood matting its own fur. No way to know what the blood belongs to, but he has a few guesses. It keeps itself between him and the tawny, orange mess. Iwaizumi shakes his head. 

They stare at each other for what feels like an eon. Slowly, the black wolf bows its head. Concession. It's in no form to fight, not with one of its pack barely clinging to life behind him. Incrementally, painstakingly, the black wolf begins the agonizing process of shifting form. It coalesces into a man, panting hard. Blood stands stark on his skin, but he has the form and bearing of someone willing to fight. He has the form and bearing of a leader. Iwaizumi would know. 

"Please," he says, voice like gravel. In this form, his eyes are more brown than orange, but they catch the moonlight exactly like an animal. The man shuts his eyes, deliberately bows his head a second time and begs, "Please. Help us." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished my first semester of graduate school and immediately went feral writing vampire fic. This is who I am.

Ushijima does not know how Tendou can stand his club so soon after feeding. He waves at whoever is watching the bar, but his every movement is overlarge, sharp, honed with a manic edge. The hunt echoes in him. Humans part around them. Ushijima is accustomed to cutting a path through mortals, but Tendou, for all his offputting eccentricity, has a way with them. These are his people and this is his element. But the mask has slipped. The monster underneath is on display. Everyone senses it. 

While Tendou chats with his employee, Ushijima scans the crowd. The hunt has pulled his skin tight, predator still awake and roiling. Each dancing, drunken heartbeat flits in his awareness, joining seamlessly with the driving music until all he knows is the urge to move, to attack.

And the _smells:_ Alcohol, sweat, sweat, sex, shitty cologne, alcohol, Oikawa, sweat-

Oikawa- 

He snaps his gaze to the source: Oikawa, seated in the corner, tapping something on his phone. Ushijima stills. It is the kind of stillness only animals know, poised in the underbrush. Tendou slaps his shoulder; Ushijima's lips pull back from his teeth for half a second, before his face smooths over. Such reactions are too close to the surface tonight. At least for a place like this.

Tendou just laughs at him. 

"Plenty of takers, that one." He points brazenly at Oikawa. Oikawa has set down his phone and is spinning a straw in his drink. Without really meaning to, Ushijima finds his neck. Even from this distance, even in this lighting, he spots bruises.

"Takers," Ushijima repeats, eyes fixed. His bruises, or-? 

"Easy, killer!" In contrast to his warning, Tendou leans his back against the bar, grinning lazily. Ushijima measures his attention between Tendou and Oikawa, keeping both in his peripherals. "As I was saying. Plenty of offers, but he just sits there on his phone. Blue hawaiin, extra cherry." 

That really shouldn't please him. His exchange with Oikawa ended in the parking garage. And yet. 

"You ruined that one for any other vampire." 

No other vampire would appreciate him, he thinks. It is a dangerous thought. "I don't take repeat bleeders." 

Tendou straightens his back and stretches, yawning with plenty of teeth. "You don't take bleeders at all," he says condescendingly, and wanders off toward a door marked _employees only_ without so much as a dismissal. Ushijima frowns after him, turning Tendou's report over in his mind as he returns to watching Oikawa from across the room. That means those are his bruises on Oikawa's neck. It thrills him more than it should. 

Before he realizes, he is at Oikawa's side. Oikawa startles, dropping his phone to the table and jerking his head up to stare.

"Ushijima!" Oikawa fumbles to collect himself. When he speaks next his voice lilts with welcome, "Hi.”

Up close, with the dancefloor and its light at his back, Oikawa's bruises take on technicolor, vibrant hues. His senses are sharp with fresh blood. In this light, in any light, he is still beautiful. The display is dizzying.

He blinks once, and brings himself back to focus. As he does, he catches a flicker of Oikawa's phone before the screen goes dark. It is a photo: Tendou caught in profile, dressed in his uniform from earlier that evening before they left to hunt. He's speaking with someone faced away from the camera, but Ushijima recognizes Semi's head of ash-white hair. 

Ushijima frowns. 

He never did decide what game Oikawa was trying to play, only that the human is observant and clever. Coy, cocky, _stupid_ but brilliant. Why take that picture? _What game are you playing?_

"Ushijima?"

He disregards the photo for now. Oikawa wants his company; Ushijima decides he will give it to him. "Good evening." 

"Still formal!" Oikawa gestures to the chair across from him. "Sit down." 

"Why are you here?" 

Oikawa's shoulders hitch for just a moment, and smooth in the next. "Well, I didn't like how we left things." He sticks out his lower lip. "And you never called." 

_I was finished with you,_ he doesn't say, mostly because: He is here, at Oikawa's side, clearly unfinished. 

"You didn't have to come at me so hard in the garage, you know! Why did you-" 

Ushijima remembers. He remembers:

 _Oikawa haloed by the garage's hideous fluorescence, and when he tilted his head back to drink, that blue light caught on his neck, on skin gone pale with blood loss, turned him even paler and deathlike and beautiful. He tilted his head back to drink and swallowed, and swallowed, and the movement of his throat was an invitation, a submission, a contradiction to the man who demanded he stand on his own two shaking legs._ Whether he wanted Oikawa was not a question. Whether Oikawa wanted _him,_ equally irrelevant. He took. Oikawa moaned. It was good. 

"We had a fun evening." Oikawa's tone: sly, teasing, smooth and flirtatious and fake like the rest of him. It is not the tone of someone made afraid in the face of violence. Oikawa reflects nothing. Nothing _real._ He is a slate. He makes himself a slate, something on which Ushijima might project exactly what he wants. That is its own sort of invitation. "You didn't even ask." 

"I don't ask." 

Oikawa throws his head back and laughs.

"Oikawa." 

The laughter stops.

"You don't ask either." 

Oikawa breaks into a grin. "I get what I want." 

Ushijima finds himself asking, "What _do_ you want?" 

It is not his policy to care more for mortals than what they can do for him. What Oikawa could offer him, he has already given. Repeats bore him. And yet. Yet he is _fascinating._ Why take that picture? Why be here, nightly, waiting for him? Oikawa wants _something._

"Oh, that's easy." 

The thing about humans is their wants are so varied. Vampires crave violence and blood and violence and blood and that can be predicted. 

Mortals? Oikawa Tooru?

"What does anyone want?" 

_Violence and blood._

"Power, Ushijima." 

It is a half-answer at best, and yet with it, so much of Oikawa slots into place. He makes sense. "Wise." 

"I thought you'd agree. Now!" Oikawa throws back the remains of his drink in several quick swallows. No deliberate flirtation this time. Quick, perfunctory. Perhaps Oikawa knows he already holds his interest. A dangerous thing to have. But yes, powerful. One rarely comes without the other. Oikawa courts both. 

He sets down his empty glass. "Let's go, shall we?" 

Ushijima does not take orders, but again, he obliges. 

Oikawa stands by the window while Ushijima pours him a drink. It is unlike mortals to keep their backs to him, but then, if Oikawa behaved as an ordinary mortal, he would not be here at all. Even after a single visit, he appears at home in this space. His heart beats steady, far cry from the hummingbird thing Ushijima came to know. 

Uncharacteristically quiet, Oikawa takes his drink, eyes still fixed on and reflected in the window. Oikawa watches the crowd. Ushijima watches him. After a moment, he says, "Was your curiosity not satisfied?" 

"Hm?" 

"You are here again, but you have not asked another question." 

"Maybe I just like the view." Oikawa sips his drink and blanches. "What is this?" 

"Rum." 

"Like, _straight?"_

"It's sweet." Distilled from cane sugar. Both Oikawa's drinks were rimmed with sugar. He thought he’d like it.

"Maybe if you mix it with something!" Oikawa takes another sip, grimaces, and takes another. "Do _you_ drink your rum straight?" 

Ushijima does not bother with an answer. It is a stupid question. He cannot drink at all. 

"Right, never mind." Oikawa waves him off and makes his way to the couch, drink in hand. It is already halfway empty but Oikawa moves with measured grace. No need to play drunk when they both know Ushijima holds all the cards. 

Well, all but one. There's the matter of that picture. Ushijima follows Oikawa to the couch.

"It's not even good rum," Oikawa mutters. He takes a final swallow and swings into his lap, hands on either shoulder. He licks his lips. “Not even good rum.” Sweet breath ghosts across his face. “Not even…” Oikawa kisses him.

They kiss and in the space of their connection he remembers what it was like to taste something other than blood. He winds a hand through his hair, cradles his head closer, kisses him, kisses him, kisses him.

It is so sweet he cannot stand it. 

Oikawa sighs into his mouth. Ushijima twists his hand, yanks him back by the hair- He gasps, he laughs.

"I wondered how long that would take." 

Ushijima tightens his fist. Oikawa follows it, this time tilting his head back of his own accord. From this angle, when Oikawa meets his gaze it is like being looked down on. Grinning, still giggling, he says, "I'd bare my neck on my own if you'd just-" 

Ushijima snarls. 

Oikawa shuts his mouth. 

A beat. Complete stillness.

Oh. Oh, he made that sound. _He_ snarled and saw red and wants nothing more than to shove this beautiful stupid alluring infuriating rum-drenched _sweet_ human down and- 

And he can do that. 

"O-okay," Oikawa breathes. For a moment he thinks Oikawa is about to get up and flee. For a moment Ushijima wonders if he'd let him. 

But instead Oikawa's hands merely snake down to fist at the hem of his shirt, one crossed over the other. His fingers tremble on the fabric. His breath comes short. Arousal colors the air, equal parts fear and desire. 

"What. Are you doing?" 

"I'm just skipping to the end," Oikawa answers, with a kind of grim determination that does not match the heat radiating off his body. 

"I'm not going to fuck you." 

The sound Oikawa makes cannot be called laughter. He barks, shaking his head. Ushijima lets go of his hair. “I know _that.”_ The shirt comes off. "You're going to bite me.” He tosses it away. “You made a mess last time, you know. This is a nice shirt! I'm not getting it bloody." 

If Ushijima truly made a mess, Oikawa wouldn't be here to complain about it. "That wasn't a mess."

"Whatever." Oikawa dips his head forward to kiss him again.

Ushijima does not give him the chance. 

He tosses Oikawa onto his back, head hitting the armrest hard enough to daze. It is the same as before, but this is how he always hunts. Go in hard and fast, daze his prey to end the struggle and then _take._ He pins both arms above Oikawa head. _Minimize anything he might use to fight back. Bring him to heel._

But Ushijima already hunted once tonight. Oikawa is not that kind prey. He is- 

_He’s what?_

Oikawa’s eyes snap back into focus. He is still shaking. But when their eyes meet, he grins. “Are you going to bite me or do I have to-” 

_Fine,_ he thinks, angles Oikawa’s neck with a fist in his hair, and bites. 

“Fuck,” Oikawa gasps. Then, so soft it nearly dies beneath the blood rushing in his ears: _“Yes.”_

He swallows. Fear sparks under his tongue.

Oikawa goes lax underneath him. 

He swallows. Fear twists, melts, reshapes itself into a sigh. 

A twitch. 

He swallows. Above blood rushing in his ears: A whimper. 

One of Oikawa's hands slips from his grip, and Ushijima lets it go. Predator instinct slowly bleeds into something nameless and far more dangerous. 

He swallows. He could drown.

Oikawa twists, tenses, shakes. 

Ushijima tears himself away. Twin gashes drawn from neck down to clavicle. Red blankets his vision, brighter than expected. He is not even _hungry_ but Oikawa draws him in like- 

It doesn't matter. Ushijima blinks it away. As the red recedes, Oikawa comes fully into focus: 

Blood pools in his clavicle, a glistening spot of black against his skin. No one could call him unblemished ever, ever again. His chest jerks in aborted, stuttered breaths. He trembles, eyes wet, a hand his down his pants. "You- I-'' But Oikawa can barely _move._ Venom pierces every part of him. "I _need-"_

Ah. Ushijima wraps his free hand around Oikawa's, halting its attempt at friction. 

Oikawa whines, head jerking side to side, eyes squeezed shut. "Bite me again so I can- Ushijima, _please-"_

"Calm down." He does not know if the order is for Oikawa or himself. It works on both of them. The red recedes utterly, cool stillness washing over him. 

For his part, Oikawa nods. He takes several, stuttered, hitching breaths. Tears catch on his eyelashes. 

"Wh-why-" 

Ushijima releases the arm above Oikawa's head. Even without his weight holding him in place, it remains. 

No, Oikawa is not prey. Not at all. He does not know what Oikawa is but prey does not behave like _this._ Not for him. 

With his free hand, Ushijima reaches between the couch cushions where Oikawa's phone slipped, forgotten. He holds it up to Oikawa's face. 

"Open it." 

"What-" 

"I will not ask twice." 

Oikawa stares at him, comprehending but frozen. 

A push, then. Ushijima moves his hand, and his hand moves Oikawa's with it. A single, slow stroke. His eyes flutter, flutter shut. 

He stops. Oikawa's eyes fly open. 

"You-" 

"Your phone," he says again. He could keep Oikawa on the edge all night, just like this.

Oikawa fumbles for his phone, utterly absent of the grace he usually wears so deliberately. Unmasked. His fingers shake on the screen. All of him trembles.

Wordlessly, Ushijima navigates to the photo from earlier that night.

Except there is not just one photo. Rows and rows, taken across several nights. Tendou features heavily, speaking with various informants. Another of Shigeru sequestered in a corner, purposefully plain, dressed to be invisible but Oikawa caught him anyway. And there is the bowl-cut boy Tendou seemed so taken with several nights ago. Rows and rows of photos. 

Every ounce of sweetness in his mouth goes bitter on the tongue.

"I-" Oikawa starts.

_"Quiet."_

He nods. The wetness in his eyes has turned to molten fear. 

In his hand, Oikawa is still hard.

“You want power," he repeats. 

Recognition flashes in Oikawa’s eyes. He shakes his head. "I haven't- I just-" 

Ushijima locks his phone, and sets it gently in Oikawa's free hand. The hand still not wrapped around his dick. That hand, Ushijima begins to move. 

"I don't care," he whispers, speaking into his ear so he might be heard against the chorus of noise breaking from Oikawa’s mouth. He’d laugh if he didn't feel so cold. 

"You don't-?" 

With his other hand, Ushijima clasps Oikawa's fingers around his phone. He holds that hand, like a lover. Like a mockery. 

"I don't care." 

He squeezes. Oikawa whines. He squeezes. The phone creaks. He squeezes. Oikawa opens his mouth to say something. He _squeezes._

Glass spears Oikawa’s hand, and he screams.

Ushijima bites hard into his shoulder, gives him _exactly_ what he begged for. And if he chose a place with more muscle than flesh- If he picked this spot because it would hurt- 

It doesn't seem to matter. Shaking with exertion, Oikawa comes. 

Teeth already in his shoulder, blood already in his mouth, Ushijima decides to drink. 

Oikawa shudders once, but as the afterglow abandons him:

He writhes, over-sensitive, and whispers something that sounds almost like _please_ or _no_ or _yes._ Red inches back into his vision, blankets him. He drinks. He drinks until the writhing turns to twitching. Until sobs rise, fall, and turn to whimpers. He drinks until Oikawa's heart can scarcely labor under all the loss and takes one swallow more. Because he can. Because Oikawa is so much more than prey.

Then he retreats, licks his shoulder shut, and goes to find Oikawa something he can eat. 

* * *

Oikawa’s heart continues its fevered struggle against blood loss, so that hours later, seated at Tendou’s desk with Oikawa laid out on the couch, Ushijima only knows he is awake by his laughter. 

“You brought me food.”

Oikawa points out the obvious when he is nervous. 

Strange, to know a human’s habits.

“You… exerted yourself.” 

“That’s a very kind way to phrase what we just did.” Oikawa hums, and reaches for his water. “You should really keep protein bars in here or something. I can’t be the only one who…” he trails off. Oikawa is the only one. And if he’s been watching this place, he would know that. 

“Be quiet and eat.” 

“Yeah, let me just peel this orange one-handed.” He twists in his seat to face him. For a moment, Oikawa sways, blinking rapidly before his eyes finally land on him. Ushijima’s chest- twists. He brought this man so close to death. Closer than he meant. Far closer than necessary _._ He was not even _hungry._

He brought Oikawa so close to death and yet here he is, waving a hand at him, _laughing._

“Just look at this thing!" Blood dried in bright, flaking spots of vibrant red, a far cry from the dark pool going tacky in his clavicle. Glass catches what little light filters through the window. Ushijima’s senses have mellowed, no longer turned high with the hunt. It is a pretty display regardless. 

“You are remarkably calm," he observes. 

Oikawa shrugs theatrically, rebuilding his haughty armor piece by piece. “If you wanted to kill me I think I would be dead. You said so yourself.” 

“I don’t believe I did.”

 _"Implied,_ then. Something about messes. Does it matter? It’s the truth.” 

“There are worse things than death.” 

Oikawa mutters something that sounds like, _full of shit._

Ushijima takes a moment to sit with the facts: 

They met. Oikawa observed, from little more than context, that he was the most feared vampire in that room. He approached anyway. He approached _because._ Ushijima even warned him; undeterred, Oikawa let himself be alone with him. To satisfy his curiosity? The bite might be pleasurable and Oikawa may be uniquely suited to taking it but Ushijima bled him to the point of unconsciousness. It should have been enough to curb any mortal’s curiosity. 

Did Oikawa have ambition then? Did he approach him for power, or did that come after, when he realized the boon he had at his fingertips?

“It matters, Oikawa.” 

He sniffs. “The only thing that matters is I’m still alive.” A smile: sharp, ugly. A vampire’s smile. “I think you like me.” 

“More reason to be afraid.” 

“Look, Ushijima. I thought you were going to kill me. You kept swallowing like you meant to-” he cuts himself off, the armor not yet solid enough to guard against _that._ Fear slips through as a shaking, trembling breath: _You kept swallowing like you meant to kill me._ “But I woke up. Sorry if my scale of ‘scary shit that could happen to me’ is a little fucking broken-” 

“Oikawa.” 

_“What?”_

“Did you have that thought before or after you came?” 

Oikawa narrows his eyes. “Go get me a first aid kit. You ruined my hand.” 

“You took pictures.” 

“That’s not a crime.”

Ushijima lets out a single, startled laugh, and goes to do as Oikawa asked.

When Ushijima returns, Oikawa is once again at the window, looking down at the crowd. _I bet you like to watch,_ Oikawa once said to him. So what draws Oikawa to the window? He is a man made for crowds. He is charismatic, attractive, and aware of it. Whatever he turned his attention toward, he could have, and he wouldn't have to take the way Ushijima does. He could simply _ask._

But he's here, above the crowd, with him. 

"What are you doing?"

Oikawa barely turns from the window. "Enjoying the view." His shoulders sag, like taking on some great weight- then he turns to face him, smile drawn tight and heavier still. He leans against the glass. Shadowed against the club lights, he is unblemished once more. It makes a pretty picture.

Ushijima holds out the kit, which Oikawa takes with his uninjured, shaking hand. Standing is an effort his body is not ready to undertake, but he already knows Oikawa is the kind of man to grit his teeth and push. 

"You look like shit." 

_"Thanks."_

Oikawa shoulders past him to sit at the desk; without thought, Ushijima grabs him by the arm, and nudges him back against the glass. Oikawa slumps against it, a perfect mirror of their first time. Would Oikawa collapse again? One way to find out. 

Ushijima kisses him. He makes a startled noise, one hand coming up to grip at his shirt, the other pressing back into the glass- then he sighs, lets Ushijima hold him up, and kisses back. The first aid kit clatters to the floor; Oikawa nearly goes after it, hand scrambling against the glass, leaving tacky prints in its wake. 

"I'm going to-" he breathes, and then he really does collapse, swooning sideways and to the ground. Ushijima lowers him so he doesn't hit his head. A second later: breathless laughter. "I- fainted." He paws against him, pushing Ushijima's hands away, an echo of the assertion, _I can stand on my own._ "I'm so tired of being weak." 

"There's beauty in weakness," he finds himself saying, then shuts his mouth. How does one say _When you shake it makes me want you_ in a way that does not reveal precisely the kind of monster he is?

Why does he suddenly _care?_

Oikawa rests his head on his knees. "I don't want to be _weak."_ He turns his head inward, burying his face. 

"Oikawa," he says, in a voice he does not recognize: something prodding, something gentle. 

He makes a noise of recognition, a question, muffled in his limbs. 

"You are not... only weak." 

"What’s that supposed to mean?" 

"You're ambitious. You're clever." You're foolish. You're beautiful. "Your weakness is only physical." And that can change, in an instant. A seed wedges itself in the back of his mind. It takes root. 

For a long moment, Oikawa remains like that, head hidden in his knees, shoulders tight and curled and heavy. Then he sighs, straightens, and reaches for where the first aid kit had fallen. 

Thoughtful silence envelops them as Oikawa picks glass from his hand with a pair of tweezers clearly meant for wooden splinters and not fine shards of glass. Too soon, he reaches for the gauze.

"There's still glass in your hand." 

"Whose fault is that?" Oikawa snaps. 

Without response, Ushijima takes the tweezers, flattens Oikawa's hand and finishes the work. 

Still picking glass from his hand, Ushijima makes an offer: "I could give you power."

Oikawa stops breathing.

"Put you to work. You are _clever._ Do you think I cannot use that?"

Oikawa flinches his hand away. "Make me a better offer! I don't want to be _used."_

"I think you do." 

"Shut up." 

Ushijima gets to his feet, leaving Oikawa to wrap his wounds. "I’ll call you a cab." 

"The answer is no." 

"It's a standing offer." He rests a hand on Oikawa's head, smoothing hair from his face. 

For a moment, Oikawa tilts into his touch- then looks up, eyes narrowed to killing points. Oikawa might be weak but his grit is sharp enough to maim. 

Ushijima grins. He can use that. He wants that.

"If I catch you taking pictures again, it won’t be just your hand." 

Grinning back at him, Oikawa snarls, “I can’t wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I don't care," Ushijima says, caring extremely, 
> 
> Hi!! Hello!! I looked away for two seconds and plot happened!!! I don't entirely know where I am going with this, but I think maybe one or two more chapters? Probably? Things can't get much worse for anyone involved, right? Right?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, I finally added the "Graphic depictions of violence" warning to my tags

Oikawa shouldn't let Ushijima know where he lives, but he's too tired to care, so he accepts the cab home and subsequently puts it from his mind. It's not like his roommates are ever home anymore. They spend all their time at the den. 

He misses his friends. 

(He does not want to be used. He just wants to be _useful.)_

Oikawa takes his shower sitting down, cold instead of hot to keep him awake. Stars swim in and out his vision, but if he lets himself rest he's scared he might not- it's just- 

The last time he fell unconscious, he swore he wouldn't wake again. 

Water soaks his bandages but he cannot be fucking bothered. Who gives a shit about his hand? He has a USB to deliver. 

On the bus, Oikawa drifts. Route 10 circles the warehouse district then makes its way out of town. Familiar scenery drips by; each blink takes him several minutes down the road. His journey passes in disjointed increments, marked by hazy half-dreams of blood and pleasure and blood.

God, he's exhausted. 

The den appears on the horizon. Den is a dreary term for an much cheerier place. It's this old farmhouse with enough space for several beds, an enormous living room, and several acres of private land that feed into what passes for a forest. A warm, familiar place. They all spent last summer re-building, painting, then finishing its deck and even from this distance, with this haze over his head, it is a bright spot of painted blue against the dark backdrop of midnight trees. If he shuts his eyes and strains, he can almost fool himself into hearing music carried on the wind, a party like the ones they used to throw raging once again.

Things are different now.

Oikawa opens the front door to a triage unit.

Iwaizumi stands at its center, barking orders from the living room. Beside him: A man Oikawa has never seen before, in a borrowed shirt he _has_ seen before. He is approximately Iwaizumi's size and shape. Shorter, maybe, but his shoulders stretch the fabric thin. Beneath: Bandages, blood seeping through. He holds himself with a kind of steely focus Oikawa knows well. He holds himself like a leader, like a wolf. 

Oikawa pushes his way into the living room. Both couches are pulled out into beds, bodies stretched carefully atop them. Oikawa stills, knees locked. He makes himself see their faces.

The first: Someone his age, but enormous like every born werewolf he's ever known. Long brown hair. His eyes are open, brows knitted tight in quiet pain. 

The second body: 

The second- 

He cannot be any older than eighteen. Small. _Small,_ and it looks like he got the worst of it, if his chest is anything to judge by. Something didn't set right. 

He should not be relieved, but it rushes through him anyway, so fierce he has to hold the couch for balance. Iwaizumi's pack is his pack. Have been his whole life. _Are_ his whole life. And if something like this happened while he was fooling around with the enemy- 

Not like he could have done much; it is not like they would have let him. They are his pack, but not by blood. They are his pack, but not in the way that matters.

On the plus side, no one notices his hand. 

But Iwaizumi notices him. They lock eyes; Iwaizumi nods his acknowledgement, then turns to Mastukawa. "Keep working with Sawamura. I'll be outside." 

Oikawa gets the hint and meets him on the porch. 

"What happened?" Oikawa demands once they're alone. 

All the steady, leader's bearing bleeds from Iwaizumi in an instant. He leans over the railing, hands clasped in front of him. A measured moment of silence passes between them. Iwaizumi is always keeping things from him, these days, their every interaction weighed between friendship and responsibility. 

They are Iwaizumi's pack, in _every_ way that matters. He leads them. 

"They're from out of town," he says at last. 

Oikawa joins Iwaizumi on the railing and scowls toward the tree line. "Helpful." All this and still Iwaizumi keeps him in the dark, like that could protect him from- 

It's a joke, considering how close he came to death tonight. And speaking of: Oikawa reaches into his pocket and pushes the USB in Iwaizumi's direction. "I haven't seen what's on there. Maybe you can use it to-" he glances back at the house. "...Use it to help. I don't know." 

Iwaizumi takes the USB, and pauses.

"Oikawa, your hand-" 

He shoves his hand back into his pocket. Iwaizumi reaches for his wrist like he means to stop him, but pulls back at the last moment. 

_Ushijima would have pulled me back,_ he thinks, and does not pause to examine what it means. 

"What happened?" 

"Spot of trouble. Don't worry about it." Iwaizumi isn't stupid. If he thinks about it too much, he'll know- 

Know what? There's nothing to know. 

(That's a fucking lie.) 

"Fine," he snaps, and then, softer, "Thanks, Oikawa." 

"Tooru." 

"...Tooru. Thank you. I'm sorry you've had to... I'm sorry you're involved." 

Oikawa throws up his hands. “Don’t be stupid! No, really. Don’t be _stupid._ Did you forget they’re my friends too?” 

“This is _serious.”_

“And so am I! Your problems are my problems!” 

They didn’t used to be like this, keeping secrets. 

But then that horrible night, violence on top of violence that only ended when Iwaizumi inherited the pack, and Matsukawa got to join him. He joined him in the way that _matters._

(Hanamaki fell next. Fell and got back up just like Matsu. So what if it nearly killed them? Matsu is fine now. He’s _better_ than fine, and stronger than before. Oikawa dodged death once tonight. He could do it again, if Iwaizumi just _let_ him.)

“Tell me what happened.” Oikawa tries again. He doesn’t mean for it to come out like begging. He's done too much of that tonight already, and now look at him. Look at his hand.

“It’s like I said. They’re from out of town.” At least this time, Iwaizumi looks at him when he says it. 

A spark of irritation. “That’s-”

 _“Dangerous,”_ Iwaizumi finishes. “We’re established, we have treaties with the other packs and if something attacks one of our own-” 

He doesn’t need to go on. Oikawa remembers that horrible night: The wild fur and fang, Matsukawa dying in the grass _(dying except for the part where he came back stronger),_ and the mad hunt that followed. Aoba Johsai chased down the wolf who did it and Iwaizumi tore it to pieces. The police quietly turned their heads. 

The real problem clicks into place. Oikawa parrots back: “But they’re from out of town.” The strangers are not established here. They have no treaties. Police would not suffer the indignity of turning their eyes for them. “So they're vulnerable.” 

Iwaizumi makes a noise, looking over his shoulder to the shadows moving behind the window. “Something took advantage.” 

“And you’re helping them?" It comes out like an accusation. 

“We’re patching them up.” 

Oikawa sucks on the inside of his cheek and barely holds his tongue. 

The front door swings open and Matsukawa sticks out his head. “The little one’s awake.” 

Oikawa turns and a second later finds himself looking up at the moon, in Iwaizumi’s arms. 

He fainted. 

_Again._

So fucking _tired_ of being weak. 

“Hell, Oikawa-” 

_“Shut up,”_ he bites.

Iwaizumi hoists him back to his feet, but he doesn’t let go, one arm under his shoulder while the other- 

While the other- 

Fingers ghost over his neck, eliciting a full-body, dizzying shudder. “Oikawa…” 

Oikawa rights himself, pauses for the stars in his vision to settle against stars in the sky, then strides into the house with his shoulders back and head held high. 

Inside, the flurry of activity has settled into organized chaos. Kindaichi is carefully repacking a first aid kit. The strangers are gathered around each other and the black-haired man - the one who holds himself like Iwaizumi, the one called Sawamura - is bent over that broken orange frame. Someone has scrubbed all the blood and dirt from his body, so he looks much better than the glimpse Oikawa caught on arrival. 

He also looks much, much worse. 

Without blood confusing light and shadow, his abdomen sticks out: A sharp bulge, bone pressed against skin. 

Once, Hanamaki flubbed a kickflip and caught his wrist in the railing he was trying to grind down. Inertia propelled him further down the stairs, but iron held his wrist and left it injured, probably sprained. It was just a skateboard trick gone wrong, and Makki was much stronger than before, so what was the point of first aid? He’d just become a _werewolf._ They thought nothing of it until Makki woke up the next morning with his hand soldered at the wrong angle overnight.

He healed as easily as they thought he would. He just healed _wrong._

Even now, after breaking and resetting the delicate bones, Makki’s wrist clicks when he types, and its range of movement is slim to none, on a good day. 

This little, bright-haired, mangled werewolf healed so wrong Oikawa can scarcely bear to look. But Oikawa makes himself look, so he can listen. 

“...came after Asahi first, but they didn’t see me so I-!” The front door swings shut. 

The little werewolf freezes. They lock eyes.

One by one, everyone slowly follows the little werewolf’s gaze, and every pair of eyes land on him. 

“And it smelled like _you!”_

Oikawa doesn’t skip a beat. He scoffs. “As if.” 

Sawamura puts a hand on the little wolf’s shoulder. It might have been a reassuring gesture, if not for the fact that his eyes never leave Iwaizumi. “We aren’t trying to offend anyone,” he says apologetically. 

Oikawa crosses his arms. “I’m not offended, he’s just wrong.” Don’t they know he’s _human?_ He can’t even beat Matsu at arm wrestling anymore. 

“We don’t want to offend,” he says again, “But Hinata’s nose has gotten us out of scrapes before. If he says you smell like the attacker-” 

“Attackers _,”_ someone interjects. Oikawa startles. He forgot about the other injured stranger; he’s huge like every born wolf Oikawa’s ever met, but he’s utterly without presence and has a voice to match. “One came at me. The second jumped Hinata when he-” He makes a sound high from the back of his throat, head falling forward in a curtain of hair. 

The little wolf twists to duck his head into that curtain, and says something to the other one that Oikawa can’t quite hear. 

“Two of them?” Iwaizumi asks. His tone is even, unreadable if not for the intensity. He’s too honest, Oikawa thinks. He wouldn’t last a moment with Ushijima. 

“Two of them!” Hinata agrees, ducking out from that curtain of hair. He nods with an energy Oikawa cannot imagine having after being bled. 

And that’s what this was, isn’t it? With the blood scrubbed off, he can make out each of Hinata’s wounds, the most obvious of which: Twin tears, beginning at his neck and wrapping around to his mid-back. Oikawa’s neck burns. His tears stretch from neck to clavicle, but they're shallow, and he asked for them. He wanted them. He nearly _came,_ would have if Ushijima hadn’t- 

He cuts the thought off. This is not the place. Oikawa walked from one vampire’s hands and into the aftermath of another’s. A triage unit. Blood and grim faces. It seems wrong, that something which brought him right to the edge of bliss could wreak this much carnage.

Except, it is probably the other way around. Vampires wreak carnage and in it Oikawa found pleasure. He is the aberration here. He knows that. 

The conversation continued on without him.

“...see their faces?” 

“Maybe? It happened fast. But it bit me and-” Hinata jabs a finger at Oikawa, “I’m telling you, he smells like venom.”

Oikawa blurts, “You can smell that?” 

A miscalculation. 

If werewolves can sniff out venom, venom not just on a vampire but _in his own blood,_ then Iwaizumi, born a werewolf and strong enough to lead his pack, can sniff it out as well. And he was there that night in the garage. And he’ll recognize the venom in his blood tonight as the same. And he’ll _know._

Daichi smiles at him again, so earnest that Oikawa wants to walk over there and claw it off with his bare, human hands. 

“Like I said. He’s got a good nose.” 

Oikawa swallows hard. Between the lines, Oikawa hears: Iwaizumi cannot smell it. Your secret is safe. 

Despite himself, he relaxes. 

And relaxes too soon. “Oikawa?” Iwaizumi asks, accuses. 

“What?” he snaps, already on the defensive, which is bad, because there’s nothing to defend. “I can’t just- I’d look suspicious if I didn’t- Augh! I just can’t go to a vampire’s club in the vampires’ district every night but never spend time with a vampire. I’d be suspicious!” 

In lieu of response, Iwaizumi looks between him and the trio of strangers with the same measured expression he wears while trying to decide just how much pack business he should share with the human. Now he is wondering how much Aoba Johsai business they should say in front of the outsiders. 

Gleefully, Oikawa does not give Iwaizumi the option to measure his response. He catches Sawamura's gaze, holds it and grins. “Don’t worry. I’m not a traitor. I’m just a spy.” 

Iwaizumi smacks the back of his head.

Oikawa ignores him. “So if I smell like I was bitten by a vampire to your pup’s freaky little nose, it’s probably because I was bitten by a vampire.”

There is something disgustingly delightful about making an entire room of werewolves squirm, like schadenfreude in fucked up reverse, where his personal misery is both catalyst and cause. 

Hinata does not squirm. His gaze never leaves him. 

Now, Oikawa squirms. 

“You’re not listening,” he groans. “You don’t just smell like any vampire’s venom. You smell like _its_ venom.”

All Oikawa’s smug delight grinds to a halt. 

Iwaizumi, too, grinds to a halt. Iwaizumi looks at him the way someone looks at their feet when they take a step expecting solid ground and find only air. 

“Fuck, _Oikawa.”_

“You can’t know that for sure!” He adds, like he’s pleading, “Can you?” 

“I’m not lying!” 

Oikawa looks at Hinata’s stomach. 

Oikawa looks at his hand. 

_Oh,_ he thinks, and his vision tilts the same way it did on the porch, at the club, against the window, on the couch. His vision tilts as if to remind him: You are human, you are weak, you are over your head. 

He will not faint again. If he faints in front of Iwaizumi again then he’ll put an end to his involvement - for his protection, he’ll say, and he’ll mean it, which is the worst thing about all of this. He will put him on the bench and then Oikawa will be back to a human on the outside looking in, rather than a part of this team and in the thick of it. 

Oikawa decides to sit down. 

“Who was it?” Daichi’s voice is gentle but he is the only person in this room without pity in his eyes, and for that, Oikawa almost gives him the truth. 

Almost. Oikawa only shakes his head. “I don’t know, I was at a club. Anonymity is kind of the point.”

Hanamaki tilts his head. “Weren’t you taking pictures?”

“Yeah, of important people! He was just nobody-” 

“It fed on you!” Iwaizumi barks. “I’d call that _important-”_

Before or after the wolves? Before, he thinks. Why would Ushijima drink him to unconsciousness if he had already fed? But the timing doesn’t work no matter how he tries to force the pieces into place. After. It had to be after. 

Ushijima is- 

Ushijima is handsome. He is intense. He is powerful, focused, blunt, and if he told Oikawa to get on his knees, he’d bare his neck on the way down. 

Ushijima is a monster. Oikawa knew that from the start. Danger was part of the allure - a vital beat in their dance. Danger in the abstract. Danger he could flirt with, but danger that would surely never touch. 

Oikawa looks again at Hinata’s stomach. He looks again at his hand. 

Ushijima is a monster. He knows this tangibly now. His hand throbs with it. 

_There are worse things than death,_ Ushijima told him. It both was and was not a warning. 

He looks at his hand. 

He looks at his hand. 

He looks at his hand.

“Oi,” Iwaizumi shakes his shoulder, “You alright?” 

Oikawa wants to laugh. “Better than they are.”

And isn’t that the truth? A hand is nothing. 

He is going to see this through. 

* * *

Three days later, Oikawa gets a cellphone in the mail.

Hanamaki looks at him sidelong. The clock in their cramped kitchen reads 1am. Hanamaki has been examining it for the last several hours, since he and Matsukawa returned from the den with dirt on their faces, looking like shit warmed over. Matsu took one look at him and went for the shower. 

“Where’d you say you found this thing?” Hanamaki asks. “This spyware is intense.”

 _I didn’t say,_ he thinks, but that’s too suspicious for even Makki to let slide. Makki, who was human not too long ago. Makki, who has not forgotten what it meant to be on the outside looking in. 

“I stole it.” 

“Okay, bullshit.” Hanamaki turns his laptop to face him. The phone’s contents are emulated on the screen, a single text message on display:

> Oikawa- 
> 
> If you want something, you have to take it. 

The message is followed by a phone number, different from the number which sent that text. 

Does this mean Ushijima meant it, then? _I could give you power._ Yeah, sure. What’s the price? 

The answer, just a call away. 

“I stole it from-” He rubs his neck. Bruises on top of bruises. _Stop asking questions,_ he thinks, picking at the scabs, _Look away._

Sure, they use every bit of information Oikawa brings them. Matsukawa and Hanamaki still aren’t done pouring over that USB. They’ve got spreadsheets to sort through it. But using what he provides is one thing. Seeing the evidence on his body? Cowards, all of them. 

Maybe he’s being unfair.

Hanamaki’s gaze shifts back to his screen.

Or maybe he’s just being as fair as they deserve. 

He bends forward to drape his chest over the kitchen table. And if it shows off his clavicle? Hey, that’s a bonus. 

Matsukawa emerges from the bathroom in a rush of warm air, pimpling his skin with goosebumps. Lately, he’s had the damnedest time staying warm. 

“Matsu,” Makki tilts his screen so he can look. “This looks familiar.” 

“Hm.”

Oikawa lifts his head. Matsukawa taps at his own phone, and holds it up next to Makki’s laptop. “Same company.” 

Makki whistles through his teeth, and fixes Oikawa with a glare.

He swallows.

The walls close in. 

“You are so full of shit, Tooru.” 

“Hey-!”

“Ushijima Wakatoshi.” 

“Yeah, I’m watching him, you’re _welcome_ -”

Eyes blazing, Hanamaki turns his laptop to face him one last time. “The phone was purchased by a company. That’s weird, right? But it’s a burner, so maybe not too weird except guess who _owns the fucking company you goddamn moron-”_ On the screen: That damn spreadsheet. Highlighted: Ushijima Wakatoshi. 

Oikawa gets to his feet. “I know what I’m doing!” 

“Like hell!” Makki shouts back. “You were just supposed to watch him, not-!” He chokes on the next words, several things slotting into place all at once. _“Fuck.”_

And like that, Hanamaki cuts his strings. Oikawa slumps back into his chair and looks out the window. 

Outside, the tree in their backyard scrapes against the kitchen window, casting eerie shadows, eerier noises. Still better than meeting Hanamaki’s eyes.

“I mean, we haven’t fucked, if that’s what you really want to know.” 

“Dude, shut up.” Hanamaki unplugs the damn cellphone which started this all and shoves it at him. “You should burn that.” 

"I'm seeing this through." 

"Iwaizumi won't let you." 

"Fortunately," Oikawa feels his face contort more than tells it to move. He grins, so sharp it hurts. "He isn't the boss of me. I'm not in your pack. Remember?" 

Hours later, when the house is empty once again, Oikawa lays in bed and turns Hanamaki’s face over in his mind, eyes blazing, hearing, _Iwaizumi won’t let you._

But he is not doing this _for_ Iwaizumi. For implies a gift, a service, a chain of command. The whole endeavor has an air of some larger plan, but in truth, Oikawa only ever wanted to be selfish. 

He is not doing this for Iwaizumi. He is doing this to protect him. 

Oikawa Tooru makes a call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, All Plot!
> 
> No sexy vampire bites this time, but the other shoe finally drops??


	6. Chapter 6

Hanamaki and Matsukawa are bent over the kitchen table, an enormous map spread between them. City streets, bus routes, subway tunnels all colored in a dizzying array of at least four different highlighters. 

"I see you've moved on from spreadsheets!" 

Hanamaki barely lifts his head. "We're trying to map out territory." 

"That's easy. You've got the forest. Nekoma has the docks." 

Matsukawa shakes his head. "Vampire territory." 

Oh. Oikawa looks over Matsu's shoulder while he buttons his coat. 

Matsu angles away, covering his nose. “You smell like a department store exploded in your closet.”

“Thank you! It’s my new cologne.” He quiets once he gets a good look at the map. Several circles of highlighter overlap, purple clashing over yellow into a murky, sandy brown. Tendou's club sits on the edge, purple clashing into brown. Contested territory. Oikawa had no idea. 

Ushijima's offer - _You are clever, do you think I cannot use that?_ \- suddenly makes a visceral kind of sense. Who better to map shifting streets than the human who can walk freely between them? 

What would Iwaizumi think, to know he and Ushijima think so much alike? 

"All this from that USB?" Oikawa says, a little awed, pride blooming in his gut (vines curling up his ribs). He did this. He made a difference. He is _helping_ in a way no one else can. He is human and that's fine, that's _good._

Hanamki sets down a highlighter and stretches out his hands, wrist popping. "It was like, their financials, mostly. But they keep tabs on other vampires. It got us more than I expected when I wrote that program. We have the puzzle pieces now..."

Matsu double-checks a printout, picks up an orange marker, and makes a line. Flat-faced, he says, "Putting them together is just a bitch." 

Oikawa hums. "I guess I get the fun part!" 

Hanamki looks him over. "You're going out." It is not a question. 

"Of course I am. I've got a job." 

They don't respond, but they look at him like- 

Like- 

Oikawa finishes buttoning his coat. "See you in the morning!" 

"Don't do anything stupid," Matsu says, at the same time Makki promises, “We'll be here." 

And that's the weird thing. Hanamaki and Matsukawa spend all their time with Iwaizumi, at the den, with their pack, but lately they've been _here,_ home: at the kitchen table, on the couch, Makki's grating metal music filtering through the whole house and coaxing nostalgia from its creaking floors. It is almost like before- before the terrible night. 

It isn't real. 

_Iwaizumi won't let you,_ Makki swore to him. Iwaizumi has no sway over what he can and cannot do, but he has sway over Makki. They're not here because they miss him; they're keeping an eye on him.

He pats Matsu on his head with condescension... But the contact is nice. He’s warm. “I always make smart choices!” 

Neither has a response to that.

* * *

  
  


Oikawa gets the sense the locale was chosen for his benefit, and not because Tendou’s office is a convenient place to meet. Sure, it’s furnished. Oikawa is intimately familiar with that couch, with the desk- But with four people in the room, and one more on the way, the space is cramped and unwelcoming. Ushijima stands by the window; Oikawa took his place at his side, but he cannot focus on the view. Semi Eita, the ashy-haired vampire whose photo Oikawa caught twice before, leans against the desk with his legs crossed. Shirabu Kenjiro, the tawny-haired unassuming man whose photo Oikawa barely caught, has claimed the only lounge chair. His head is propped on his hand, gaze flat and bored, but keen enough to cut. Oikawa watched this place for a week, yet this is the first time he’s seen Shirabu and Semi in the same building, let alone sharing space. He got the sense they did not care for each other beyond whatever service they paid to Ushijima. Partners of convenience, who would just as soon be at each other's throats if it ever became the more attractive option.

The room is tense, to say the least. 

A wonder, that having Ushijima in the room makes him feel _safer._ "Tendou is late," Ushijima sighs, and reaches for his phone. 

As if on cue, the office door swings open. "I'm here!" 

Tendou’s presence suffocates the room. Serving drinks, he is muffled, intensity shielded behind his role. Now, he is unmasked. The long limbs that once seemed so graceful now give an impression of gangling spiders’ legs. His joints stick out like knives. Nothing about him feels human. 

But that is not the most notable thing about Tendou Satori tonight.

Tonight the most notable thing about him is the almost-familiar, black-haired, bowl-cut little human standing straight at his side.

"Aw," Semi uncrosses his legs and stands. "Did you bring us dinner, Satori? I'll forgive you for making us wait." 

Oikawa's legs step forward of their own accord. He steps toward the human and the door like he intends to- 

To what? Take the kid and leave? If they truly intended to make a meal of him- 

"Don't touch!" Tendou wraps his arms around the bowl-cut human protectively. "His name is Goshiki Tsutomu." Tendou wraps his arms around him like a vice. "Ushijima wants to introduce his human. I'm showing off mine."

"They are not quite the same," Ushijima sighs. The room's attention snaps to him, three pairs of shining eyes turning to the window in unison. 

Oikawa creeps closer to Goshiki anyway.

Tendou slaps him on the shoulder. 

“Hey, it’s Blue Hawaiin!” 

“Hi,” Oikawa deadpans.

“Blue… Hawaiin?” Semi parrots. 

“That would be me,” Oikawa turns toward Semi and plasters on a smile. “If you ever want to buy me a drink.” They might as well get introductions over with. 

Semi looks him over. His gaze is like a physical thing, a hand tilting his chin this way and that; it is like a finger on his pulse; it is like fire on his neck, a burn, an itch; it is every bit of Ushijima’s intensity with none of his cool steel. This man is molten. 

Semi Eita takes his hand. “Good to meet you.” 

“Good to meet you, officially.” Oikawa makes himself accept his hand, and does not shudder at the chill. _Look at me all you like; I’m here as your equal._ “It’s Eita, right? Semi Eita.”

 _I know your face, I know your name; do not underestimate me._ He goes on: 

“Did you know you stand out like a sore thumb?” Oikawa smiles without mirth. He smiles like a threat. “Reign in that intensity and maybe next time you show up to whisper in Tendou’s ear, you’ll stand a chance of blending in.” 

Eita looks him up and down, laughs without laughing. “Why would I want to blend in?” 

Oikawa narrows his eyes.

From the lounge chair, Shirabu sighs. “You wouldn’t get it.” 

Oikawa jolts, spinning to face the voice. 

“You startled the mouse!” Semi laughs aloud this time. “You’re so nondescript.” 

“Thank you.” 

Oikawa gathers himself. He is not a _mouse._ “Ah! Shirabu, that’s your name. Isn’t it? So nice to meet you.” 

Shirabu narrows his eyes. “We have not been introduced.” 

“Mm, not properly.” Oikawa holds out his hand. “I remember you, but you almost had me there. You really are nondescript. Very impressive. I mean, if that’s what you’re going for.” 

Shirabu clicks his tongue and says nothing.

“And this-” Tendou throws his arms out like a showman, “-is my Tsutomu. Say hello, kiddo.” 

Goshiki… bows?

 _Oh,_ Oikawa thinks, _now there is a mouse._

Shirabu blinks. “We’ve met your humans. Can we go now?” 

“They’re humans, but they are working for me. Do not forget that.” A beat. “Yes, you can go.”

“Sure, sure. I’ll remember their names once they last the night.” Shirabu waves him off, and disappears out the door. 

Semi shrugs. “C’mon, Tendou. If that Goshiki isn’t for us, then I’m hungry.” 

They filter out the door as well, Goshiki still at Tendou’s side. He hesitates in the doorway, casts a look over his shoulder like- Like he’s _concerned,_ like his presence is doing him a _favor._ Like if Ushijima wanted to kill him, he wouldn’t just murder Goshiki for the cover-up. 

Oikawa rolls his eyes and deliberately looks away. 

The office door clicks shut. 

“Fine bunch of friends you have,” he says to the silence.

“Friends,” Ushijima repeats, like a private joke. “I would not call them friends.” 

“Neither would I. I think they wanted to eat me.” He says it like a joke, but when he laughs it comes out tight, not afraid but something like it. 

Ushijima touches his wrist. A touch without pressure, fingers tracing up that vein, the crook of his elbow, his neck. He is being examined. Oikawa tilts his neck. The fingers stop there, beneath his ear. He holds his breath, and for a moment he thinks Ushijima means to bite him, even after the week they’ve spent waiting for the bruises to fade away. For a moment he is sure Ushijima’s offer of power for information was just a ruse to get him here, alone, _his._ Then Ushijima speaks:

“Do not let them.” 

Oikawa’s arm twitches like it intends to strike. It does not know Ushijima could kill him in an instant (or slowly, and painfully; or slowly, and pleasurably). It knows only that it braced for fangs and found absurdity instead. He laughs and it is manic, like a conditioned response to this room, this proximity, this vampire who stole every ounce of his good sense along with his blood.

“I’ll be sure to strike _bitten by Semi Eita_ from my schedule.” 

_“Tooru.”_

“Like I’d really have a choice.” 

The fingers beneath his ear curl, nails digging into flesh. Blunt nails. Human nails. Somehow, Oikawa expected claws. 

_“Do not let them.”_

_Oh._ Oh, is that jealousy? 

Oikawa grins. He can use that. “You know that really handicaps my usefulness. That’s how I got up here the first time, isn’t it?” 

The nails curl harder, dig deeper, almost draw blood- then continue their trail to tilt his neck, sideways, thumb swiping gently at his jaw. 

Which just about confirms his hypothesis, really. 

How delightful. How _delicious._

“You are here now because you are clever. I trust you will be useful regardless.” 

"Why does it matter to you?" 

And there that hand goes into his hair, pulling. Oikawa moves with it, laughing with delight. _I caught you._

"You’ve never seen yourself, in the after-" Ushijima does something he's never done before: He cuts himself off. 

"Seen me…" Oikawa cups the hand in his hair, pushes it forward as he curls himself around Ushijima, mouth so very, very dangerously close to the man's neck, which he never lets him touch, never lets him kiss, so of course he wants to, "Could it be you don't want anyone to see me like that? Want it just for you?" 

"You would come apart." He says it like an accusation. He says it with reverence. 

“I would _not.”_

“You _did.”_

Oikawa shuts his mouth, hand throbbing in a memory of glass. He came apart.

“Fine,” he sighs, but curls himself ever forward. He kisses Ushijima’s neck. “That’s just for you, then.”

* * *

They have him watch Inairzaki. It is- not exactly a club, in the way Tendou’s place is a club, with its flashing purple lights, its heartbeat bass and single office above it all. Inarizaki is ice blue, ultra-violet, strobing, and built for VIPs. The dance floor stretches up three stories, its high ceiling made entirely of mirrors. The effect is dizzying. 

Oikawa has a headache. 

The second floor wraps around the dance floor, so that VIPs might look down on the dancers below. So many pairs of eyes strobe in and out of vision, each reflecting light, each pair inhuman and watching and hungry. A clever way to maintain privacy without sacrificing for atmosphere. He’ll have to get upstairs if he wants a look at who’s inside. 

It oozes exclusivity.

Truthfully, he's bored of this. 

“Curious t’see what’s up there?”

Oikawa shifts his gaze. 

Miya Atsumu.

“Just imagining the view." Oikawa props his head on his hand and lets himself look at Atsumu. His tight black t-shirt blends into the strobe light, giving the sense of a spirit flicking in and out of view. His teeth glow beneath the ultraviolets. No vampire would hide itself here.

Oikawa is bored with this. But the view is nice. 

“Would ya like to see?” 

“Buy me a drink first.” 

“Thought you’d never ask.” 

_I didn’t ask._ Oikawa clicks his tongue. _I never will. Now, give me what I want._

An hour into Atsumu’s company, Oikawa has switched from his Blue Hawaiin to rum, straight. When you’re a VIP, they give you the bottle and leave you to it. Or maybe they just leave you the bottle when you’re in Inarizaki’s company. The Miyas don’t _own_ this place. Oikawa hasn’t seen the owner. From what he gathered, the owner rarely shows his face at all. 

The Miyas don’t own this place… but it’s something like that. Something like Ushijima and Tendou, maybe. He doesn’t have the specifics. It’s his job to find out.

It’s good rum, anyway. Smooth on the way down. Or maybe he’s just that drunk. 

Oikawa thinks he would have preferred if it burned.

"So…." Oikawa drawls, and does not need to fake the slur in his voice, "Am I drunk enough for you yet?" 

"Not nearly." 

Atsumu is close, his chill magnified by the flush in Oikawa's skin. Oikawa leans into it anyway. 

“Pour me another drink then.” 

Oikawa watches Atsumu’s back curl as he leans forward to do just that. He trails his gaze downward, to the swell of his ass, and the phone peeking from his pocket. 

_Too easy._ Courting Ushijima put him in real danger. Getting to his computer took _blood._

Atsumu hands him his drink. 

"The drunker you are, the better yer blood." 

"Ah, I never said you can…" Oikawa furrows his brow. "Why'sit matter how drunk I…"

"Yer cute. Drunker you are, drunker I'll get. Didn't you know? We can't eat or drink or shoot up, but we've got you mortals." He licks his lips, closes the distance between their faces then slides his gaze lower, to his neck. Against his neck, he says, "Your fun is our fun." 

Oh, that's interesting. 

The first interesting thing of the night, in fact. 

"Don't know you well enough to have your fangs in me, love." He does not have to fake drunkenness but he lays in on anyway, if only to distract from his hammering, panicked heart. He cannot let this one bite him. He cannot or Ushijima will- 

_He will-_

"Hmm." Atsumu kisses his neck; Oikawa cranes it to the side, makes room, realizes what he's doing and shoves at Atsumu's shoulder before something unfortunate happens. Atsumu laughs. "Fine, fine." A final kiss, open mouthed, hint of fang and _fuck he wants that._ Then Atsumu leans away, looks at him with those lidded, sleepy eyes.

Now, that. That look Oikawa would know anywhere.

"We can still have fun," Oikawa hums. 

"Wanna fuck?" Atsumu says bluntly.

"I could be persuaded." 

They have a fine evening. 

* * *

They have several fine evenings, in fact. 

Oikawa cannot use his blood like a key, so he has to develop their relationship the old fashioned way. He has not made it beyond the VIP lounge, and there is little to glean from those four walls, but he has unrestricted access to Atsumu's phone. 

He develops a taste for rum. 

Several glasses later, Oikawa walks the familiar path from Inarizaki's club to Tendou's, taking in the cool night air. His breath fogs the air, but he cannot feel the chill, flush with too much alcohol. 

It is a crisp winter night, and that evening he woke to the house suspiciously empty. He knows Matsu and Makki have only been around to keep an eye on him, but he'd grown used to their presence, let himself sink into nostalgia. Their absence bit harder than he wanted to admit. He should be used to it. His eyes sting, and not from the cold air.

He is _so_ fucking drunk. Tendou is going to make fun of him.

Except when he reaches the bar to give his report, Tendou is absent for the first time since-

Since the night that- 

Oikawa reaches for his cellphone- His cellphone, in a hundred tiny pieces. He cannot call Iwaizumi with the phone _Ushijima_ gave him. 

But he needs to warn Iwaizumi or they’ll- 

Oikawa shoves his way through the dance floor and back out into the night. This time the cold air shocks his senses back into focus. God he is _too_ fucking drunk, like walking through honey, like being wrapped in cotton. He should be used to this, after the nights he's had with Atsumu.

Across the street, a familiar head of bleached-blond hair dips into a yellow sports car. Oikawa crosses the street without looking and grabs him by the arm- 

The arm twists, grabs his wrist and wrenches it behind his back. "Hey!" Oikawa's cheek meets cool steel. "It's just me-" 

"Oikawa?" The pressure eases, but he's still pressed against the car. "The hell? Y’smell like a distillery." 

He shakes his head. "How fast can you get me to the country?" 

"Hah?" 

"The forest. I need to be there n _ow."_

Nothing. Face against the car, Oikawa cannot read Atsumu's expression.

"That's werewolf territory," he says quietly, carefully, into his ear.

His heart pounds. The vampires are hunting and Ushijima is out there, somewhere, akong with his best friend, the only thing he cares about- 

When he speaks next, all hint of drunkenness evaporates: "Tendou Satori is grooming someone to be his fledgling."

“Well then,” Atsumu releases his arm and pats him on the back, “Get on in.” 

To Atumu’s credit, he drives like a fucking madman. They blow through stoplights, weave through traffic, fly boldly past police speed traps. He is Miya Atsumu, after all, and Inarizaki’s highlighter covered nearly a third of that map. 

“So, Tendou Satori,” Atsumu whistles, and casually drifts a sharp left turn. Oikawa grips his knee. If he dies in a car crash instead of the myriad other dangers his life’s become, he’ll be _so_ fucking pissed. 

“Who’s the unfortunate human?”

“Nice try. I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“Hah!” His hands flex over the steering wheel with delight. “Smart little human, you are.” 

“I’m not little,” he snaps before he can stop himself, every ounce of concentration thinking ahead, to the forest, to Iwaizumi, _Aoba Johsai, at Ushijima’s mercy-_ Oikawa looks deliberately out the window. “Can’t you drive faster?”

Atsumu seamlessly switches gears. They must be pushing ninety. Street lamps streak against the window; the moon, a long smear of viscous white. Street lamps turn to trees, a scattering of stars. The country. Oikawa lets out a slow, shaking breath. He’ll be there soon. He- It will be okay. He can warn them. They’ll be fine.

“How’dya know about the soon-to-be fledgling?” Another sharp turn. Oikawa’s head bumps into the window. “Say something believable or you’ll be my consolation meal.” 

“We’re-” Coworkers? Victims? “Friends.” 

Atsumu whistles. “Shi _iiii_ it. With friends like these.”

 _“What?_ Don’t believe me?”

“Nah, I think I believe you.” 

Oikawa narrows his eyes. “Good. Drive faster then.” 

“Pushing hundred, man. Chill and chat with me. Where’s the Oikawa who drank all my rum?”

“He didn’t exist.” 

“Figured.” Atsumu laughs, grins, teeth flashing. “You’re a cold one.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Don’t know about yer friend, but you’d make quite the vampire yourself, with a set of morals like that.” 

Oikawa knew from the beginning that Goshiki wouldn’t last. 

“Alright,” the car begins to slow. Trees emerge on the horizon. Oikawa’s breath picks up. “‘S werewolf country now. I ain’t takin’ you farther.” 

Oikawa throws off his seatbelt and swings open the door, but Atsumu catches him by the wrist. 

“The name?” 

“Goshiki Tsutomu.” 

He knew from the beginning that Goshiki wouldn’t last. He just didn’t expect to be the thing that killed him. 

Atsumu lets go of his arm. 

Oikawa takes off toward the tree line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year everyone!!!! 
> 
> Remember when I said I probably have one or two more chapters? Well, that was two chapters ago, and definitely an underestimation.  
> Enjoy!!!


	7. Chapter 7

"Iwaizumi!" He shouts, breaking through the treeline. Out here only the moon and stars light his path but he knows this park like he knows his own backyard. There, the copse of old growth cedar whose roots come together like stairs; here, the beautiful crop of creeping thistle which would cut their feet to ribbons as it bloomed. He scarcely needs the moonlight. He could run this with his eyes closed, even now. 

Something large knocks into him, sending Oikawa to the ground like one might kick a pebble. Oikawa braces himself as much he can, tenses for teeth to rip into his neck, tear him apart- 

Instead he keeps rolling. The thing on top of him weighs Oikawa down into the freezing dirt, but the creature is warm. It cannot be a vampire. It is alive. Oikawa clings to it, pushing against its wet fur and the familiar scent of damp earth. He knows this even better than the forest. He knows this like he knows his own breath. 

"Iwaizumi!" 

The wolf digs its nose against his jaw, huffing hot breath across his face. "H-hey!" Oikawa laughs, indistinguishable from his heavy panting. Steam clouds the scant air between them. They are both out of breath. Oikawa laughs more anyway. He laughs, and Iwaizumi nuzzles him again. They roll like children in the dirt. They are five again, they are ten, they are fifteen, they are young and own this forest and have each other. 

Oikawa shudders. The cold earth has sapped all the warmth from his back, and the damp grass has begun to take its toll on his feet. Iwaizumi gets off him and settles on his haunches; once sat up, Oikawa allows himself a moment to cling, head buried in the wolf's fur. 

"It's freezing out here," he says after a moment, nevermind that he is the one under-dressed. A fine outfit for partying in the city, but his coat was built to defend against an ashy city snowfall, not near-winter on the outskirts. 

Iwaizumi huffs at him again, and Oikawa does not need to be versed in his nonverbals to know Iwaizumi is poking fun. But they cannot stay out here forever. They should not be out here at all. Sobered in more ways than one, Oikawa goes on: "Who is out here with you? We have to go." 

Iwaizumi gets up. For a moment, the wolf stares at him, eyes bright under the moonlight. 

"It's important." 

Without further delay, Iwaizumi tilts his head to the sky and howls. 

Moments later, a second howl picks up his call in a perfect harmony. Only a second howl and no more, but Iwaizumi simply lets his call drift into silence. Just Iwaizumi and one other, then? Oikawa shuts his eyes and tries to place that call. It is familiar... But he has not been here in some time now. 

Then the second call lapses into silence, leaving Oikawa alone with himself. 

He opens his eyes in time to catch Iwaizumi twitch. Fur ripples between his shoulders, and then his back contorts as he lowers his head to the ground- 

After that, Oikawa looks away. As children, Iwaizumi always told him to look away. He used to think Iwaizumi was just shy about being naked. But once, adolescent and curious, Oikawa opened his eyes to watch. 

Shifting is hard on the body. Oikawa knew that in the abstract because Iwaizumi told him so, but to watch it- 

It looks like agony. Oikawa imagines his own back rippling, spine contorting, but his imagination can never decide what the pain should feel like. A burn? An itch? What does it feel like to have your skin stretched thin over that much muscle? For your skull to break and reshape into something else? It is no wonder the change kills so many. 

If he were to join Iwaizumi - join him in the way that mattered - the change might kill him, too. Nothing drives that home harder than watching Iwaizumi shift before his eyes. It is too easy to make himself forget the sound of snapping bone. 

What would it feel like, to become a vampire? 

It would begin with fangs. Death should hurt, but the bite is bliss. To become a vampire, he would sink into that bliss. Sink into bliss and drown in it. Drown, drown, until he is cold and dead. 

He would die, and then he would wake. Becoming a vampire would be like that. 

At last the contortions still, and Iwaizumi looks back at him with the bare face of a man. 

"What are you doing out here?" he rasps, and runs a hand down his face, pushing sweat from his eyes. Soon the sweat will cool, and without his fur, Iwaizumi will freeze. Oikawa shucks off his coat and hands it over; Iwaizumi rolls his eyes, but accepts it anyway. “You said it’s important."

"I-" 

At that moment, the other wolf steps into view. Oikawa squints at it. The features are familiar, but not as familiar as Iwaizumi’s, whose face he would know in any light and any shape. But there is something about the wolf’s eyes, something that sees just a little too much of him- 

Ah. Matsukawa. Of course. 

“It’s _important.”_ He tugs on Iwaizumi’s arm. “I’ll explain on the way. Where’d you park your car?”

Iwaizumi yanks his arm back. "Kara- Sawamura is supposed to be here soon, I can't just-"

The other pack? Is Iwaizumi still _helping them?_

“We-” a second voice rasps. Oikawa jerks his head only to find Matsukawa with one knee to the ground, panting. Oikawa goes to help him up. “We should listen to Oikawa.” 

Iwaizumi narrows his eyes at Matsu, who has already begun to shudder. “What do you know that I don’t?” 

Has Matsu been covering for him?

“That I am very smart and you should always listen to me!” 

Now Matsu rolls his eyes, but they start walking. They follow the remains of an old deer path, though he has no idea how much use it sees by deer anymore, with the forest the size that it is now. 

Iwaizumi hands Oikawa’s jacket off to Matsu, who drapes it over his shoulders without a word. Under moonlight, the bags beneath his eyes look more pronounced than they do at the house.

“Is… everything okay?” he asks softly, matching his tone to the air around them. Autumn is tipping over into winter and even the crickets are quiet. 

“You’re the one who interrupted us. I’m asking _you_ what’s wrong. You were yelling loud enough to wake the dead.” 

Right, that. 

“It’s just you and Matsu, though? I thought Makki would be going stir crazy by now.” 

“We’re taking _some_ precautions.” 

“By coming out alone?” 

“The rest aren’t coming out at all.”

“That’s-” He fumbles for a word. Scary, sure. But that’s not the crux of it. “That’s cold,” he decides. 

Keeping werewolves cooped up comes with its own dangers. Restless tempers. Accidental shifts. Madness. Vampires may be dead walking, but werewolves have their own curse. They have to let the steam out sometime.

Compared to whatever Hinata caught in the woods, though- 

Oikawa supposes he’d pick the slow death, too. 

They reach Iwaizumi’s car and the pair take a moment to re-don their sweatpants. Oikawa swings his gaze anxiously around them, like if there were vampires watching from the shadows, he possessed even a fraction of the strength to stop them. His only chance to stop them is this: Information, an early warning. 

Iwaizumi waits to speak until they are out of the forest and onto a dirt service road, which meets the main road about a mile out. “Now tell me what this about, Oikawa.” 

"I-" Matsu has been covering for him. Iwaizumi doesn't know. Does he want to change that? Does he want Iwaizumi to know what he's doing for them? "I heard a rumor that some vampires were hunting, and after what happened to those strangers, I just-" 

"Hunting?" Iwaizumi spins to look at him. 

Matsukawa reaches over to steady the steering wheel. "Watch the road." 

Iwaizumi growls and puts his hands back on the wheel. "So it wasn’t a fluke? Where'd you hear this rumor?" 

"It's more like, uhm, an inference-" 

_"Oikawa."_

_"The road,"_ Mastukawa hisses. 

"I've got it, thanks." 

Iwaizumi presses down the gas. He drives just as madly as Atsumu, except this car handles like shit and these unkempt country roads jostle an already sticky wheel. 

"We're almost to the den, so will you please just- Explain?" 

He thinks Iwaizumi means it as a warning, but it comes out too clipped, too empty of affect and that's how he knows Iwaizumi is on the knife's edge of panic. But for who?

"It's just a, you know, an educated guess. The last time Tendou didn't show at the club, he and Ushijima-" 

"Shut up,” Iwaizumi breathes, suddenly stil.

"You asked me to explain!" 

“Did you say Ushijima?” 

Oikawa covers his mouth. 

"I-" What is the point of keeping this secret anymore? He's in too deep to stop, even if Iwaizumi would want him to. Oikawa steels himself. "Yes. Ushijima. Do you want to go toe-to-toe with him? Or don’t you like having all your ribs where they’re supposed to be?" 

Iwaizume wrenches the steering wheel; they spin smoothly in the street, twice as smooth as Atsumu's driving, but his stomach drops all the same. 

"Hey!" Oikawa shouts, but by the time that single syllable leaves his mouth they've already regained speed, hurtling back toward the forest. He shouldn’t have brought up Hinata, that little thing. Should’ve known it would pull on Iwaizumi’s heartstrings. He’s too _soft._

When did that become a bad thing?

"We've gotta warn Karasuno." 

Oikawa's never heard that name before, but he can guess who it means. Sawamura. Hinata. The outsiders. 

"I rushed out here to get you _away,_ and you want to go back?" 

"They'll get hurt if we don't." 

Before he can stop himself, Oikawa spits, "So?" 

Every second they speed down the road brings them closer to Sawamura, toward Ushijima's ilk, toward death. 

They swerve left, to the edge of an ivy-choked ditch. Iwaizumi has his seatbelt off before they've even truly stopped, whirling in his seat to look at him. His eyes are wild. 

"Do you fucking hear yourself?" 

Oikawa, for the first time in his life, shrinks away. 

"We don't sacrifice our own kind because it's inconvenient. We aren't _vampires._ " 

In many ways, the wolf packs have never had a more united front. Little by little, year by year, the vampires push their city out and outward. Aoba Johsai are not the only ones who’ve lost territory since Oikawa was a child. They cannot afford to squabble with each other as they once did. But there is mutually agreed upon peace in the face of a larger threat, and then there’s _this._

"Dying is a pretty big inconvenience, Iwa-chan.” 

God, he hasn’t called Iwaizumi that in ages.

The nickname shakes something loose. Some of the wind leaves Iwaizumi’s sails. "That's rich, from you. You've been- God, I don't even know what you've been doing. I can guess." He says it like an accusation and at the same time, Iwaizumi... sinks. He pushes his forehead against the headrest, hiding his face. Against the upholstery, he says, "You can't be the only one risking their ass." 

_This is different,_ Oikawa thinks. _I'm not risking my neck for strangers. I'm doing it for_ you. 

But Iwaizumi is so much better than he ever would be, ever could be. Iwaizumi cannot afford to be selfish like him. He has to think of everyone. He's a leader. It's in his nature. 

Iwaizumi will help them; asking him not to is like asking a wolf to be silent at the moon. 

"At least," Oikawa swallows the shaking in his voice, "At least get the rest of the pack first."

He cannot stop picturing how Semi looked at Goshiki like he could swallow him whole, and Tendou wrapped around him like he meant to eat him first. Oikawa imagines Semi's hungry expression turned on Iwaizumi, Tendou's arms not just wrapped around him, but cutting into him. 

He sees Hinata's rib pressed dangerously against skin.

Oikawa flexes his hand, watches the play of fine white scars under moonlight. 

“Please.”

Wordlessly, Iwaizumi turns back in his seat then gets back onto the road - heading towards their pack, toward home. 

* * *

Iwaizumi takes half the pack with him and leaves the other half at the den. 

Oikawa sits in the living room and watches Kunimi turn their living space into an infirmary. Couches pulled out (the beige loveseat spotted with blood), first-aid kit on the coffee table (with a brand new set of suturing needles, each curved like evil little hooks), fresh water and bandages. 

He does not stick around to see the carnage. 

* * *

He hears about it afterward, though, in pieces. No casualties. Some bald hot-head needed stitches - no fangs, no venom, just a nasty gash. Aoba Johsai saw no injuries, not even Kentarou, who hates vampires more than anything and has more fire than sense. 

The warning worked. He helped them. _Saved them,_ maybe. No one will ever know for sure. But that's fine. Anything is fine so long as Iwaizumi is okay. 

If Ushijima and his cabal fed last night, it wasn’t on Iwaizumi or his people, and that's all that really matters. 

That's all that matters even if it means when Oikawa sees him next, he’ll be hungry. Volatile. And if Goshiki is gone, on top of everything-

Oikawa ponders this while nursing a drink, loitering on the edges of Tendou’s dance floor rather than going up to see Ushijima. He is still working on how to spin this story to him in a way that would not spark disaster. 

_I know I am only as useful as I am charming but I am not Atsumu’s type._ A bad lie, because it’s been going well so far. _I know I am only as useful to you as I am deceptive but Atsumu saw through me._ A better lie, but one which begs the question: _He saw through you, so why are you still alive?_

And he _has_ to spin the story right, because he cannot afford to lose this: The one thing he is good at, the one thing he can do that the rest of his friends cannot. This thing with Ushijima is _working._ Last night is proof of that! If he hadn't warned them, Iwaizumi would have been there, in that forest with those vampires with only Matsu to back him up. Oikawa plays the scenario over and over again, imagining worlds in which he listened to Iwaizumi and remained on the sidelines, worlds in which he arrived at the den to find throats torn open, skin gone pale, a bowl-cut made dark with blood- 

He can't get Goshiki's face out of his head either. Oikawa swallows the rest of his drink and moves to get another. Maybe if he just gets drunk enough, the answer will come to him. Maybe if he just gets drunk enough, he won’t keep seeing that kid’s face.

There's a line at the bar. Oikawa weaves his way through the crowd and wonders if he could swing cutting in line, since he knows the bartender. He takes a second, more careful look at the line-

And he sees someone familiar. 

_No,_ he thinks, and pushes his way faster across the dance floor. He trips over feet, clumsy in his haste but desperate to keep that figure in his sights. It _can't_ be, and yet, "Goshiki!" 

Oikawa sacrificed that lamb and surely, surely this is a phantom conjured by alcohol and guilt and not nearly enough sleep.

The figure turns. It is him. Alive, annoyed, unblemished. 

“You’re-!” _alive._ “Here.” 

“I have a right to be,” Goshiki snips. 

His voice is like a punch to the gut. They’ve barely exchanged a word since their first meeting, but to see him now feels like seeing a faded photograph made flesh. How many hours has he spent imagining Goshiki’s face? His fiery eyes gone dim, pallor choked pale, his spark snuffed out. 

“Of course you do!” He slaps Goshiki on the back. He is solid, warm, real and _alive._

Goshiki blanches at him, which is cute. “What do you want?” 

Ah, that is right. It’s not like they’re friends. They’re barely even coworkers. They are more like competitors in a very dangerous field. Is it any wonder Goshiki greets him like this? 

Perhaps he should fix that. 

“I was just- Do you want to get a drink?” 

Goshiki leans back to really look at him, but in the space of that movement his glare disappears. Stars light behind his eyes and stay. He _smiles._

They’re not friends, but maybe they could be. 

Unlike Inarizaki, this club is not meant for VIPs and quiet conversation, but they manage to find a table tucked away, far from the larger speakers. The beat still drives his heartbeat, but at least it is quiet enough to talk without shouting. 

Goshiki twists the stem of his glass between his fingers. It is a remarkably honest tell, but then again, Tendou does not know the meaning of subtlety. Perhaps he likes Goshiki for his honesty. 

It occurs to Oikawa that he knows very little about the relationship between them. It occurs to him that he can simply _ask._

“I was wondering…” he starts, at the same time Goshiki looks up from his glass and says, “I thought-” 

Oikawa holds up his hands. “You first.” 

Goshiki squares his shoulders. “I thought you didn’t like me.” 

Ah. He smiles apologetically. “I guess it must have seemed like that. I definitely don’t hate you.” 

Now it’s his turn to play with his drink. Oikawa drags his finger through a ring of condensation and draws stars on the table while he gets his thoughts in order. _I don’t hate you, I just thought you looked naive; I don’t hate you, but for a moment in the office I thought you looked at me with pity; I don’t hate you, we are just too much alike._

_I didn’t hate you then and I don’t hate you now; I just thought I sold the gun that killed you._

Finally he settles on a version of the truth. “I just felt we should worry about ourselves first.” 

“I can take care of myself.” Goshiki tilts up his chin. “I’m going to be a vampire.”

“Right, right!” Oikawa laughs, waving a hand. “I hope you do. When you are, don’t forget we’re friends, okay?” 

They spend the next few hours talking. Oikawa still does not know exactly what service Goshiki provides this cabal of vampires, and has no idea if he’s distracting from his duties, but can’t really bring himself to wonder or to care. This is nice. They get along, they have things to talk about: A shared experience, a shared position, a shared weakness for fangs. 

“So he does feed on you, then?” Oikawa asks. 

Goshiki flushes, which feels like answer enough. 

_“Obviously.”_ Or, well, that’s answer enough. Goshiki puffs up with pride. Maybe a bit more like a canary than a mouse. Either way, he is- unblemished. No hint of bruising along his neck, and when he twists his glass, no hint of fang in his wrists. Oikawa squints. It would be a strange lie, especially directed at him. 

“Really? Then where...” 

Goshiki shifts in his seat. 

The femoral artery can be accessed from the inner thigh. It supplies blood flow to the groin. If carelessly cut, one could bleed out in seconds. But when expertly opened, however… 

Vampire venom is an aphrodisiac. 

“Good for you!” Oikawa pushes at Goshiki’s shoulder, who then knocks into the wall, smiling. "I mean, that is good for you, yeah?" 

"Of- of course it's good!" 

Oikawa waves his hand in front of his face. "Sorry, sorry. I don't get to talk about this stuff much. No one to compare notes with. I kind of wondered..." _if I was an aberration._ But Tendou does not seem like the gentle sort. He in fact frightens Oikawa more than Ushijima ever has. At least Ushijima can be predicted. Goshiki doesn't seem to mind, so- So they're the same, right? If Oikawa is an aberration, then they are a cabal of two. "Well, you answered my question. So thanks." 

"Isn't it good for you?" 

Oikawa blinks. "Hm?" 

"You and Ushijima." 

He rubs the outside of his glass. The scars on his hand don’t bother him anymore, though he can’t quite say when that changed. 

Rather than the sting of broken glass, he remembers Ushijima’s fingers tilting his head, demanding that no one else have him and in the same breath declaring him something valuable, and useful, and wanted. 

Is it  _ good? _

“Yeah,” he answers softly. “Yes, it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone take a breath, goshiki is okay


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: Bumped the rating from M to E
> 
> I honest to god tried to wait on posting this chapter but the second my beta got through with it I lost my mind, so here. Have 4 thousand words of porn, which I wrote in a two-day haze.  
> Also: this chapter had a beta! thank you Andy <3 
> 
> Detailed content warnings in the endnote, if you want them!

He and Goshiki finally say their goodbyes just as Tendou abandons the bar and disappears behind the door marked employees only, which leads to the private elevator, which leads to his office. 

That's- not good.

Oikawa resolves that he cannot avoid Ushijima forever. The longer he does, so soon after their thwarted hunt, the worse it will look for him, especially when he admits he can no longer work Miya Atsumu. And Oikawa needs to look his best. He can afford no less than his best and neither can Aoba Johsai. 

After a moment, Oikawa follows through that same door and down the hall, toward the elevator, toward Ushijima. The door clicks shut behind him, muffling the club noise down to a low and driving thump, the heavy bass which takes his heartbeat and puts it in its place. 

In the elevator, in the quiet, Oikawa sobers. The music loses its hold. He leans his head against the wall, focuses on the motor's steady hum. It clears his head, soothes his palate, smoothes his buzz into something manageable. He's ready to see Ushijima. He can do this. 

The elevator dings open. 

Shouting filters down the hall. 

"...not yours to order like-!" 

Oikawa pauses in the threshold and strains to hear someone's muffled response, but the second voice is calm, low, and- 

A snarl. A crash. Glass breaking, he thinks. (He knows the sound well.) 

_Laughter._ That he recognizes as Tendou. Not the voice that shouted and not its cool response. 

Silence. 

Oikawa steps back into the elevator. 

"You can come in, Tooru." 

His legs move of their own accord. He scrambles for an excuse to turn and leave but his heart is in his throat. Oikawa thwarted their hunt and the office is full of hungry, flaring vampires and- 

Oikawa opens the door. 

Four animals look at him in unison. Oikawa freezes on the threshold like a goddamn deer in headlights. His head is full of alcohol. Stupid, _stupid,_ drinking when he had this to face but how would he have known? He was so caught in guilt he couldn't think more than one step ahead. Stupid. Stupid. He needs to see everything. Information is the only stage on which he might be an equal and he went and shot his knee out from under him for a moment of relief. 

"Hey, Blue Hawaiin!" Tendou waves. "What a pretty heartbeat. Relax. I'll fix you a drink." 

Oikawa snaps back into focus, tells his panic to shut the fuck up, and makes himself take in the situation. Ushijima sits behind the desk, Tendou on its edge, legs swinging like a delighted child. It is, technically, his office. Shirabu sits on the arm of that couch, legs crossed; he looks him over once then looks away, toward Semi. 

Semi stands in the remnants of what was once a glass table, and turns to face him like he intends not just to swallow him whole but to quarter him alive. Blood drips from his nose, over his lips and catches on his chin where it pools like black honey. 

He's never seen a vampire bleed before. 

Oikawa crosses the threshold, legs carrying him to the desk, to Ushijima's side. His heart won't _calm down._

"The man of the hour," Semi sneers, and strides forward. At first Oikawa thinks his jacket is struck through with glitter, but as he moves he sheds glass.

"Eita." Ushijima says. Just his name. 

Before he can continue, Tendou hops from his perch on the desk and slinks toward him. “Come on, Semi-Semi.” Tendou brushes glass from his shoulder with a friendly hum, but it has the air of someone brandishing the dull edge of a sharp knife. 

“You’re so cranky when you’re hungry.” 

That confirms what he already suspected to be true: Last night’s hunt did not just fail to touch Aoba Johsai and Karasuno, but failed completely. 

Semi looks between Ushijima and Tendou like he wants to say something, mouth pulled in half a snarl, blood accenting the outline of his lips. He turns that molten gaze back on him; it hits like a physical thing, weight bearing down on his neck. 

Then he looks away, back toward Tendou. “Maybe I’ll steal your dinner.”

Without dismissal, Semi walks toward the door. Tendou follows, laughing. “Now you’re throwing a fit! You’d hurt him, you know, he’s _delicate…_ ” 

“What if you watch?” Shirabu says as he stands to leave as well.

_“Hmmm.”_

Their voices disappear down the hall.

They are alone. 

There is an elephant in the room, and the elephant is made of glass, and the elephant is shattered. The elephant dusts Semi’s jacket and the elephant left pretty white scars all over his hand. And this metaphor got away from him. 

"Trouble?" Oikawa shoves a hand in his pocket and leans against the window, feigning casual until he feels it. “And you all seemed so friendly with each other.” 

“Just business,” Ushijima says, in the same tone Iwaizumi uses when he’s decided to keep some pertinent detail to himself. 

Oikawa lifts from the window and turns to gaze out of it instead. A familiar sight by now. It brings him some measure of clarity, of peace. 

He tries to think this through. He’s accustomed to vampires looking at him like prey. Invites it, because he is _not_ prey, and the more they believe him helpless, the more he can accomplish. 

The thing is, Semi never looked at him like prey. Oikawa shook his hand, met his eye and demanded, _You will see me as an equal._ And he did, as much as any vampire could.

But now Semi looks at him like an _enemy._ And he does not know what changed. 

"Where did you go just then?" 

Oikawa blinks at his reflection to find Ushijima close behind him. Despite himself, Oikawa smiles. They have walked this path before. Circumstances have shifted, but the path is the same and they will walk it again, and again, and again. 

“Truthfully…” Oikawa says, though he’s never once been truthful here. “I was wondering how close I just came to death.” He turns to face Ushijima properly. They have walked this path before. Perhaps Oikawa is more truthful here than he’d like to admit. “I’m not an idiot. I know how vampires look at me.” 

“Eita does not like when things are off limits to him,” Ushijima says after a moment. 

“And I’m off limits.” 

“Among other things.” And before he can press further: “You only bleed for me.” 

"Of course." 

Ushijima takes him by the wrist. "Bleed for me."

“Now?” 

“Yes.” 

_Oh._ He blinks. He grins. 

This, he can work with. 

“I thought you didn’t like repeat bleeders. This would be the third time.” 

“Convenience takes precedence, on occasion.” 

“Am I the occasion? You're developing a habit.” 

Ushijima narrows his eyes imperceptibly, but they are so, so close, and Oikawa has walked this path before. He knows the look. He knows how vampires look at him. 

He licks his lips. “How do you want me?” 

Ushijima takes a step back, so Oikawa steps around him and over to the couch, shedding his shirt as he goes. Skipping to the end. He does not look at the pile of glass. 

“Did something happen?” He has the shape of it, but no details. “I usually have to goad you into this.” 

“Oikawa.” A hand grips his wrist. Ushijima, behind him in an instant. Outwardly, he doesn’t startle, but his heart kicks back up, so he might as well have. 

“Hm?” 

“Shut up.” 

Ushijima sits, and pulls him by the arm into his lap, back to chest. Oikawa moves to twist toward him - needs to see his face, useless if he can’t read Ushijima’s face - but Ushijima holds him still. 

“This is how I want you." His voice rumbles against his back. 

Oikawa leans back in acquiescence, gets an arm around the back of his neck and grips, nails digging into skin. It is perhaps testament to Ushijma’s hunger that he allows Oikawa to touch him here, the way he never has before. 

Ushijima kisses his shoulder, and then teeth find his neck. 

Pressure - _skin breaks -_ pain - _fangs sink deep -_ he grits his teeth, lets out a breath, whimpers once and then- 

_“Ah!”_

It hits him fast, as fast as the first time, as fast as it always does. He will never be used to this.

Behind him, Ushijima rumbles. It might be laughter, or a growl, but already Oikawa is hazy and does it really matter which it was? Both mean Ushijima wants him. Oikawa sinks back, sinks down, shudders with each swallow, grows cold even as his gut slowly comes to a boil. He is cold. He is hot. He _wants._ His hips twitch.

He has walked this path before.

On instinct, he lets go of Ushijima’s neck and meanders down to his waist, fingers already clumsy as he fumbles with the button- 

Ushijima catches his hand. 

_“Come on,”_ he whines. They’ve walked this path, too. 

This time Oikawa is certain the rumble against his back is laughter. It shakes through him and jostles Ushijima’s fangs and fuck, _fuck-_

His fangs rip free. Oikawa throws his head back in frustration, knocking hard against Ushijima’s shoulder. He throws his head back far enough to catch a glimpse of Ushijima’s face, mouth glistening with his blood, lips turned in a smile. 

“Come on, come _on-”_ He’s pretty sure his body tries to twitch forward again, chasing friction that just isn’t there, expect- 

Except that when he moves he grazes against Ushijma’s open palm. Oikawa grinds forward again, like maybe it was some vision conjured by a desperate mind but the friction repeats. "Wh-" he chokes on nothing but his own breath. _What is this,_ he wants to demand, because the last time Ushijima actually touched him, touched him like _this,_ he dragged him to the edge and held him there, dragged secrets out of him, shattered glass in his hand and bit him and made him come _just like that-_

Oikawa sucks in a breath. He can’t breathe. “Not again, I-”

In response, Ushijima grinds down his palm. For a moment Oikawa sees nothing but the back of his own skull. He can’t do this, not _again._

“You come apart,” Ushijima says into his ear. With violence. With reverence. 

He opens his mouth. To object? To moan? To say thank you, because he knows it for the praise it is? “I-” 

Ushijima digs back into his neck, and Oikawa is gone. It hurts for a moment but the bliss hits him so fast and so hard he can scarcely remember his name.

He writhes in Ushijima’s lap, grinds up against his hand, each movement more difficult than the last. Venom makes quick work of him in every way it can. How cruel, to send him careening toward bliss only to sap his ability to chase it. 

Ushijima has mercy, and takes him in hand. 

“Thank you,” he pants, or tries to, and uses whatever is left of his strength to writhe out of his jeans. Without breaking, Ushijima knocks his legs apart with his own. Oikawa comes apart. He _comes._

When next he can think, Oikawa moans with relief. Ushijima did not take him to the edge and dangle him there like a threat. Ushijima brought him to the edge and sent him, willingly, right over. "Thank you," he breathes again, and again. 

Ushijima's fangs slip slowly from his neck. Oikawa hisses with what little breath he has. It’s like the final slide out after a good fuck. The thought makes him shudder. Then Ushijima tongues the wound, and he shudders harder. Actually, he thinks he might be shaking. 

At some point, Ushijima draws away. His grasp on time gets fuzzy, in this afterglow, but it cannot be very long because Ushijima is still at his back, holding him upright with an arm around his waist, holding him secure. Oikawa claws at consciousness, drags himself into awareness. He still does not know what this is, or why Ushijima has touched him in a way not meant as violence. 

Fingers graze across his neck. He is being examined. He is used to that. But he is not used to _this:_ Tenderness, not from Ushijima. He does not trust it. 

Ushijima grabs his spent cock and strokes. 

“Ah-!” Oikawa shakes his head. 

Ushijima- laughs.

"Hey!" He means to say it playfully, but his voice comes hoarse, weak and wrecked. It sounds more like begging. Maybe that's what it is, except he doesn't know what for.

Ushijima strokes him again and Oikawa makes a sound like he's been hit in the gut, but his dick stirs. Maybe this is what he's begging for: Not to be useful, but to be used. 

"Hey," he tries again, more serious this time. "What…" 

Ushijima twists his wrist and this time Oikawa doesn't even have a noise to make, just opens his mouth and arcs as best his body can. Which is to say: he barely moves at all.

He _feels_ everything, though. 

_What was that?_ he meant to ask. Instead he asks, "What are you doing?" 

The hand stills. Stopping hurts as bad as moving. 

"I am jacking you off." 

To his horror, Oikawa's cock twitches. He tries to imagine what Ushijima must look like saying something like that. Ushijima, who does not mince words and only ever says exactly as much as he means.

"Why?" 

"You aren't this stupid." 

Except he was drunk before and venom sunk deep and he does not know how much Ushijima drank but the room spins. He cannot _think._

Ushijima strokes him one more time, then drags his hand through the mess on his stomach. "I'm going to fuck you." 

"Oh," he says dumbly. "Okay." 

Ushijima brings his hand - slick with his cum - to his waistband. Oikawa has a sense for what Ushijima intends to do now, and means to lift his hips, but, "I can't- I mean I- fuck." And he has no sense of how long the worst of this weakness will hold. He usually sleeps through it. Unconsciousness would claim him, and when he woke, he could move with some effort. 

This is- 

He is at Ushijima's mercy, utterly. 

It should not thrill him, but he is already almost hard a second time. 

Ushijima makes a noise of acknowledgement. The arm around his middle drifts lower, finds the seam and tugs, so casual that he doesn't realize what's happened until the breeze sends a shudder down his spine. Ushijima's slacks are rough on his bare skin, overheated, over-sensitive, and out of his control. As if to drive it home, Ushijima lifts him using only the arm around his waist, and his fingers slip inside. 

"Oh," he breathes, dumbfounded. Two fingers, no resistance. Oikawa says it again. _Oh, oh, oh._ They curl and he throws his head back. Wants to, tries to, but it only lolls to the side. His muscles won't cooperate. It is no wonder Ushijima's fingers went in so easily. Oikawa can scarcely move his muscles at all. "Oh, that's-" He laughs, can't quite decide on a word. Bizarre, impossible? Hot? "Useful." 

“I wouldn’t know.” A third finger, as easy as the first. "But you take it well." 

He does not know what to do with that, but it feels like praise, so he moans- then keens. Ushijima curls his fingers a second time, the pressure maddening and insistent and gone just as quickly. His fingers hurt more coming out than going in. His muscles still won’t cooperate, but anticipation has him coiled tight and tense and it’s not like Ushijima had any proper lube. Just his cum. Filthy. Humiliating. Hot. Ushijima intends to fuck him, like this. How? With his blood? 

Oikawa moans. That’s- it would hurt but it would be- 

_Fuck._

“You went somewhere again,” Ushijima says, amused. 

“I-” 

A tell-tale click. He summons enough control to glance toward the noise, and breathes a sigh of… Relief. Disappointment. He squints at the bottle; it seems so out of place, until he remembers this is technically Tendou’s office, and unlike Ushijima, he is absolutely the sort to mix business and pleasure. 

Oikawa imagines Goshiki on this same couch, Tendou between his legs, Tendou’s teeth in his thigh. Delirious, he replaces Goshiki will himself, imagines _Ushijima’s_ teeth in his thigh- 

“Come back, Oikawa.” 

He shakes his head, banishing the image. It doesn’t take, but at least his muscle control is returning, bit by bit. 

"Where did you go?" 

“I thought you meant to fuck me bloody.” 

“Not tonight.” 

Oikawa wants to say something sharp, something like, _You assume I’ll come back,_ or, _Awful confident, aren’t you?_ But he’s fooling himself. He will come back, and Ushijima does not make threats he cannot keep. 

Instead, he says, “This isn’t about sex for you. Is it?” 

“I am going to fuck you.” 

“But that’s not what I said. Look at me. I’m naked, I’m in your lap, and I- I can’t _move._ This is about power.” 

“If it was about power, you’d be on your knees.” 

“I can do that.”

“Now? Like this?” Ushijima pushes the base of his spine, unbalances him so that if not for the arm around his waist he would tip forward to the floor and into all that broken glass. 

Ushijima suspends him above it, his arm the only thing between him and a face cut to ribbons. He thinks that is the point: _Look at what I could do to you. Look at what I have done instead._ Is it a lesson? 

“I would,” he whispers. If Oikawa got to his knees, he would cut himself apart. He thinks he’d do it anyway, but Ushijima just holds him on the edge. 

It’s about power. It is a threat. It is a promise. It thrills him.

Ushijima pulls him back from the edge and in the same movement, slips inside him. 

Oikawa arches, arms scrambling back for something to hold onto but only slipping on Ushijima’s shirt. 

“I told you to come _back,”_ he hisses in his ear. 

How will Oikawa learn the lesson, if his mind keeps stumbling away?

Ushijima rolls his hips. Oikawa's eyes roll. He is, despite Ushijima’s warning, really, truly, _gone._ He settles into himself. His mind goes quiet, for the first time in- for the first time in days, maybe weeks, he doesn’t know, but it is so good to stop thinking and just let himself be- just _feel._ Ushijima finds a rhythm, each roll a shock that sends his limbs into writhing agony-pleasure-pain-pure sensation. He tries to get his feet onto the couch, tries for leverage, _anything-_

But that would put control in his hands. That would defeat the lesson. Ushijima growls, tips him forward, lets go of his waist. 

Oikawa throws out his arms. He falls, barely catching himself on the broken table’s metal frame. Glass digs into his palms. Hot, wet, blood springs to the surface. He barely feels it. Ushijima keeps fucking him. 

He turns his head with effort, means to hide his face against his shoulder but gets caught at the sight between his legs. The angle is impossible but _good._ He can almost see Ushijima driving into him, hard, cold, thick and spearing him open but what he notices most of all is this: His flushed bright cock, dripping, full of blood he didn’t think he had to spare. 

His arms shake. 

“I- gonna fall if you- _Please-”_ He does not recognize the sound of his own voice but he knows how to beg. 

The hand that used to be around his waist finds his hair instead, yanks backward so Ushijima can look him in the eyes. 

“You keep drifting.” 

“I’m- I’m trying, I _swear-”_

Ushijima drops his head and Oikawa has just enough time to shut his eyes before the rest of him follows, cheek falling into glass. 

"I'm here!" He shouts, voice breaking with effort as he tries to push himself back up. Fails. "I'm _here."_

His hand returns to his hair, pulls him back up, and pulls, and pulls back, until Oikawa is once again seated fully on his cock and then he pulls some more, forces him to arch his back, and arch, and arch. Oikawa stares at the ceiling. He stares at the side of Ushijima’s jaw. Even when his hand lets go, Oikawa remains, lifts an arm and loops it around Ushijma’s neck to hold his arched position. _See? I’m here. I’m good for you._

Ushijima flicks his gaze down to him, and that single look threatens to throw him over. 

“Good, Tooru.” 

He opens his mouth to respond, but Ushijima picks up a new rhythm and it is all he can do to hold on, stay _present_ even as he wants to drift back into himself and float. “I-” he chokes out. Needs to talk or he’ll go away again. “I-” He shakes his head. “Touch me, please, I- anything-” Any anchor, any port in a storm, _anything._

“You’ll come like this.” On his cock, untouched. 

Oikawa shakes his head, whines, “I- Can’t- You have to touch- _please-_ ” 

Instead, Ushijima drags his nails over the wounds littering his neck. Sting joins the ache, joins pleasure and curls together in his gut and that is what finally tips him over. He comes sobbing. 

The next he’s aware, Ushijima slips out and lowers him to the couch, head cradled against the armrest. Ushijima slipping from him feels so much like fangs leaving his neck; he hisses, he gasps, he laughs. Or maybe he cries. His face is wet. No, wait, that’s blood. 

He tries to roll onto his side, thighs sliding against each other in a way they should not. Slick with cum, though he can’t remember the moment Ushijima followed him off the edge. 

Next time, then. 

“Oikawa.” 

“Mnm.” He’s earned the right to slip away, now. 

“Tooru, open your eyes.” 

Groaning, he opens them. 

Already Ushijima is put back together, though his hair is mussed, and little red scratches trail from his nape to shoulder. Oikawa came apart, but he undid Ushijima too. A part of him. Rubbed away a layer. A small victory. 

_“Your eyes, Tooru.”_

He opens them again. Can’t remember shutting them, but he makes himself look up at Ushijima. _I’m wrung out,_ he wants to say. _You used me up. I want to rest._ But Ushijima knows all that. So he asks, “What is it?” 

“Something for you.” 

“Not another orgasm. I really, really can’t.”

Ushijima actually laughs, eyes reflecting real humor, loose in a way Oikawa has never seen. “Information. A…” he picks his next word carefully, “A gift. An arrangement.” 

Oikawa moves to sit up- but the room spins, and he has walked _this_ path before, so he settles back down and prepares himself to sleep. It will take him whether he wants it to or not. 

“You are not the only thing off limits.” 

He frowns, reaching back into his mind for the conversation that started this all. It feels so far away. 

Holding his gaze, Ushijima says simply, slowly, clearly: "Aoba Johsai." 

Oikawa jolts himself awake, aware, heart beating hard behind his ribs. Never mind the blood loss and the insistent pull of sleep. 

"What have you-" 

"I've done nothing. That is the gift. We will do nothing to them." 

He thinks further back, Semi shouting, _Not yours to order._ Skips forward to Semi glaring at him with blood down his face, _The man of the hour._ The argument was about him. Him and his people. 

Before he can process, Ushijima leans down over his body, hand trailing from his stomach to his right thigh. That leg aches, old injury flaring from strain. There, Ushijima comes to rest. He leans, and leans, until cold breath rakes across his thigh like nails. 

Teeth slip in, and Oikawa is gone. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (line break of no-spoilers)  
> Specific content warnings:  
> Oikawa consents verbally, but Ushijima doesn’t ask, so, take that as you will.  
> He gives consent while inebriated.  
> And a general warning for eroticized violence. Pretty much the same fare as previous chapters, but definitely more explicit.
> 
> I write smut like, approximately once every two years. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! 
> 
> Author thrives on comments ♡


	9. Interlude

Water laps at the docks like a heartbeat. The city is alive; Tendou has always believed that, even when he was mortal and young and not prone to an immortal's penchant for thinking in obnoxious abstract. 

The city is alive, and like the living, it yields easily if you know where to push. And Tendou knows where to push. Its people dance to his beat as sure as the humans sweating along to the music in his club. 

Tendou stalks the docks with confidence. These are not his usual grounds, but the forest is off limits now. Whatever. He prefers the city, and Semi will too, once he gets accustomed. 

Tendou follows a heartbeat. He bounds from a crate onto a long stretch of roof so he might see around the rows and rows of unkempt buildings. The docks are littered with warehouses like this: Long, flat structures with very little legal oversight, even in the more active stretches of industrious oceanfront. And this part of the city is far from industrious. Maybe once upon a time, but they've been choking Nekoma out for a while now.

The heartbeat grows closer, louder, somewhere off to his left. Tendou jumps down from the roof to make his approach. At this point in a hunt, he would switch from tracking by eyes and ears to scent, but he is not in clean forest air. Each inhale brings a whiff of salt that could be sickly sea breeze or sweat. It could be an oil slick or seaweed or decaying gulls caught in plastic - or it could be blood. It is impossible to tell. 

So, at a disadvantage, Tendou keeps to the shadows. He rounds the warehouse, teeth throbbing in anticipation of finally, _finally_ a proper meal. He takes the corner ready to pounce. 

And finds himself on the docks again, ground slick with seaspray beneath his feet. No heartbeat - just the ocean crashing against the shore. 

"Augh!" Tendou pulls at his hair. 

The city is alive, and the city is mocking him. 

He used to wonder how Nekoma held the docks for so long, sandwiched between vampires and the ocean. He gets it now. The ocean is a heartbeat, its current like blood rushing through veins. The air is salt sea breeze and rotting fish and obscures any hint of life. He cannot hunt by smell. He cannot hunt by ear. He cannot hunt by sight. He's totally blinded here! 

The ocean is not Nekoma's rock to the vampires' hard place. The ocean is their ally.

He glares at the water like he could hunt and kill _i_ _t_ instead. 

Shouting interrupts his glaring. _A howl. A crash._

Tendou takes after the noise without pause, unresolved _hunt_ still thrumming in his limbs and making his teeth ache. 

Only as he reaches the back of the warehouse does Tendou realize he recognized neither voice. _Then where the hell is Semi?_ No time to wonder. He rounds the corner and nearly runs into a pile of splintered crates. In the crates: Some bleeding mortal he has never seen before, their features hard to make out among all the blood and splintered wood, but this close he can recognize its blood. Werewolf. 

_Finally._

His vision edges red, focus narrowing to that crumpled body, chanting _food, food, food, food._ He is _hungry._

A second figure stands from its crouch over the body, and turns to face him. Tendou watches it as if in slow motion. The figure wipes blood from its mouth, yellow eyes reflecting a familiar thrill. A hunt well done. A vampire. Under the moon, its hair is golden. Under the moon, the blood on its mouth glistens black. 

Tendou shifts his weight, _hunt_ quickly overtaken by _fight._

The vampire licks his lips. Tendou does the same. 

"Ya don't belong here." 

Tendou shrugs. "Just passing through!" 

The vampire snarls. 

At that moment, Semi rounds the opposite building. He, too, is covered in blood. 

"Semi-Semi!" He shouts, waves, and grins. The stranger whirls on his feet, graceful and sharp and riding that familiar wolfblood high. "Let's get this show on the road!" 

The vampire grins back at them. He rolls his neck. "See ya on the other side! Best vampire gets t' feed."

Crumpled in a heap of broken crates, the werewolf groans. And like a starting gun, they lunge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tendou POV >:3
> 
> A heads up moving forward! I'm a grad student and classes have started up again, so updates may be slower BUT this fic is nearing the finish line (four to three more chapters? probably??) so I'm going to push through!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Class has already friend my brainnn, please enjoy!

Tendou gets out of Semi's car and spits blood onto the pavement. 

Semi grimaces at him from the driver's seat. "Gross."

Tendou grins at him, bloody teeth and all. "Hey, it's your blood." 

It was lucky that they took to hunting on the docks together, or that fight would have gone- Worse.

And he would've had to make it all the way back into their territory injured and on foot. He rests a hand on the roof and leans in through the passenger door. 

"Spit out my blood and I'll fucking kill you."

Tendou pokes the inside of his mouth, feeling out the extent of damage. Mostly healed now, thanks to Semi. Blood still coats his tongue. 

"You say the sweetest things!" 

Tendou didn't get his proper meal, but Semi's blood is a good consolation. The skirmish ended in a draw. It shouldn’t have. Two on one, with Semi riding the same wolfblood high as that Inarizaki asshole, it should have been a wipe. A decisive victory. Instead they’ve limped their asses back here like a pair of whimpering dogs.

He doesn't look forward to telling Ushijima about this. It's so embarrassing. 

"Sure you don't wanna come back up? You can borrow a change of clothes." He doesn't want to explain all this alone. He sweetens the pot, "We can share my dinner, I bet he's plenty drunk by now." Or they can get him drunk. High. _Whatever._ Something fun to make up for this shitty adventure.

Semi gives him a patronizing look. "Unlike you, I caught my prey tonight. I think you need him more than me." 

But Goshiki isn't about _need._ Tendou doesn't _need_ to make a fledgling - he just likes the kid, and wants to keep him around forever. 

And that is why he will _not_ be feeding on him alone tonight, not while he's healing and hungry and bristling with wounded pride from a fight that should have gone very, very differently. He'd much rather work out this energy with Semi. He isn't picky on the how. 

"Spoilsport." 

"You'll just have to owe me some other night." 

"Anything for you." 

Tendou decides to avoid causing a scene, and takes the private elevator from the parking garage. He keeps a change of clothes in his office, mostly because he likes to - _entertain_ \- there, but having a place to get cleaned up is convenient for lots of reasons, like when you go hunting and lose a fight you definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent should have won. 

How did Oikawa get so chummy with those Inarizaki assholes? They're insane. 

As the elevator climbs, his violent energy bleeds out into some measure of calm. He puts Inarizaki from his mind, and starts planning out his evening instead. This is his domain. The club is his, the office is his, and it might take him all night, but a string of humans should be enough to tide him over. He could end the night with Goshiki. Then he probably won't kill the kid by mistake. That would suck. 

The elevator slides open

Not even a step into the hallway, Tendou smells blood. He tongues at his lip, but he healed fast and stopped bleeding a while ago. The blood clinging to his clothes has already gone stale. This is fresh. This is a neon sign, a goddamn dinner bell: Weakened prey here, come take your fill! And after the night he's had- 

Before he realizes he's moved, Tendou swings open the door to his office- 

And sex hits him like a fist to the face. "Ho _oo_ ly shit." He stands in the doorway, mouth hung open. It coats his tongue. He goes momentarily cross-eyed. 

The rest filters in: An unsteady heartbeat, shallow, labored breaths. Tendou shakes his head. 

Belatedly, he realizes, _Oikawa Tooru._

Tendou snaps his mouth shut. This is not weakened prey. Friendly as he and Ushijima are, if he touched this one-

It just seems mean, to make Oikawa off-limits then leave him bloodied, unconscious, and thoroughly sexed in his office. 

That last part is particularly interesting, though. It is the last thing he expected from Ushijima, who last took Semi Eita to bed nearly a decade ago, and never once looked twice at the mortals he fed from. 

Tendou had a lot of sex. What else to do with immortality? Ushijima has other priorities. Sometimes he wondered if Ushijima enjoyed sex at all. 

How _interesting._

He stalks toward the heartbeat's source. He can't touch, and he definitely can't feed- but he can look. He licks his lips, gets a taste for the air. It is such a contrast from earlier that evening, when Oikawa met Semi Eita's stare and dripped with fear. He never cowed, but they all heard his heartbeat, they all smelled that nervous sweat. It was delicious. It lingers in the air even now, but layered above it... 

_Venom,_ of course. And that's fine. Tendou doesn't mind the taste; unlike Ushijima, he feels it's only polite to share. And where there is venom, there is lust. 

He rounds the couch, and Oikawa finally comes into view. He's naked. It shouldn't surprise him - he could smell it from the door. But he finds himself frozen anyway, unable to drag his eyes away. Oikawa stirred Ushijima for the first time in years. A _mortal_ stirred Ushijima for the first time in years, and that mortal is _still alive._ Here, in his office, laid out on his couch and covered in cum like one of his own conquests. 

Tendou's teeth ache. He is _hungry,_ and Oikawa is covered in blood. 

It cakes onto his neck. Tendou counts two wounds. No, wait, three. One on his thigh. Hard to make out from this position, but the bruising stretches around Oikwa's thigh and Tendou is no stranger to bruises like that. 

Are there more? They were all hungry, after all. Could he roll Oikawa over for inspection without waking him? Probably. This is not an easy sleep. It is unconsciousness. Oblivion. It is the sleep of near-death. 

When will Ushijima kill Oikawa for real, he wonders?

"You did a number on this one, didn't you?" he says to the air, just as his office door opens and Ushijima enters. Tendou barely turns to look. Still, he cannot turn away. Maybe he gets why Ushijima is so taken with this one, not that he'd admit it. 

"Satori." 

Tendou holds up his hands, straightens _(when did he crouch so close?)_ and flashes Ushijima his widest grin. "Wasn't gonna touch him," he lies, and they both know it is a lie, but they also both know he wouldn't dream of betraying such a tiny little order like _don't bite this one._ Unlike Semi, he doesn't mind when things are off limits, so long as they are interesting. 

And Oikawa is _interesting._

Ushijima balances an unopened water bottle on top of a previously unnoticed first-aid kit. He has a protein bar in his other hand. 

"That sure isn't an orange." 

Ushijima doesn't even look at him, but that's fine, because the protein bar says enough. It is a special purchase for the special human who Ushijima fucked within an inch of his life - but not to death, because he wants this one alive. 

"What do you want, Satori?" 

"My office back! A new table?" He toes the broken glass. "I'm just here to get cleaned up." 

For the first time since arriving, Ushijima actually looks at him. Assesses him. Notes the damage, the blood dried on his shirt, the swell in his fractured hand. 

"We won't be long. You can wait." 

_We,_ Ushijima says. 

"You really did do a number on him," Tendou says again, and purposefully rakes his gaze over Oikawa's body. The damage is actually worse than he thought: Shards of glass embedded themselves in Oikawa's cheek, his palms, and fine cuts streak down his chest. Tendou imagines how Oikawa got those - Ushijima, fucking him forward and dragging him across the glass. Did Oikawa like it?

He lingers on Oikawa's soft cock, the streaks of cum and bloody fingerprints. He decides Oikawa probably did like it. _Masochist._ Tendou feels giddy. 

Ushijima crosses his arms and does not take the bait. 

_Spoilsport._

"What happened?" Ushijima says, clearly changing the topic. 

"Double spoilsport." 

Ushijima gives him an irritated look. Just a twitch of the eye, but Tendou can read him well enough by now, and the man only has so much tolerance for pleasantries. 

"I took Semi hunting on the docks! Since he was so cranky." And here is the point where things get embarrassing. Tendou sticks his hands in his jeans to stall for time, then bites back a wince. Among all the sex and blood fogging up his senses he forgot about his fucking _hand._

Ushijima looks him over a second time, taking in his appearance through the new information. "Werewolves did this?" 

This time Tendou really does wince. "Did you know Inarizaki hunts the docks?" He rubs at his wrist. It's healing, but _ow._ "We ran into- I don't know his name, the annoying blond one." 

"Miya Atsumu," croaks a voice from the couch. Tendou snaps his attention to Oikawa, whose eyes are suddenly open and remarkably aware. When did he even wake up? The downside to bleeding a mortal into unconsciousness is how impossible it is to follow the sound of their heartbeat or their breath. There is no marker between unconscious and awake for a mortal brought so close to death. The heart labors all the same. 

Tendou waves a hand in his face. "Well there's another country heard from!" 

Oikawa glares, and slowly pushes himself into a seated position.

Once upright, he doesn't flail to cover himself, or demand Tendou leave the room. If he finds his nudity embarrassing or degrading, he doesn't show it. Tendou can't decide if that's disappointing or endearing, but it's definitely impressive. 

Somehow, he expected meekness. Oikawa is nothing of the sort. He is made of steel, when he wants to be. This is the man who met a room of vampires, held Semi's gaze, shook his hand and in the same gesture informed him that he'd been watched, assessed, and found lacking. Quite the little vampire, in his own right. One does not need to stretch their imagination very far to imagine Oikawa Tooru as one of them. Even naked and bloody, he holds himself like one of them. 

Well, he can't have that. Tendou cups a hand to his ear. "What did you say? You're a little hoarse." And _ooo,_ if looks could kill! 

"Miya Atsumu," Oikawa says again, his voice as wholly wrecked as the rest of him. He frowns at the floor, hard, clearly displeased about- something. Oikawa is watching Inarizaki, isn't he? "I don't think…" 

"Don't think too hard there, you'll hurt your pretty little head." 

Oikawa snaps his jaw shut and resumes glaring at him. 

Yeah, Tendou won't mind having this one around forever. 

"Tendou." 

"Hmm?" 

"Please inform Shirabu there may be retaliation. I assume Semi is already aware." 

Tendou gives a mock salute. 

"I don't get it." Oikawa says tersely. "You knew it would provoke them, and there's a whole buffet downstairs. You can't need enrichment _that_ badly, just because you're dead and live forever. You're immortal, not stup-"

Ushijima cuts him off. "Do you know how much land it takes to support a pride of lions?"

Oikawa shakes his head.

"Not to mention the right prey!" Tendou adds. 

"If the land is fallow, the pride seeks more territory." 

Oikawa is quiet for a moment. "Fallow." 

"It means uncultivated!" 

"I know what it means," Oikawa snaps. "I just wouldn't call this place _fallow."_

"Maybe not for a bunch of hyenas. But we need the _right_ prey," Tendou explains again, then shrugs, dismissing the topic. Ushijima can continue the lesson on his own, if he wants. "Anyway, I'll leave you both to it. Don't take too long. I have people to do tonight." He takes one last, deliberate taste of the air, and gives the pair their privacy.

* * *

Ushijima gives Oikawa time to get himself cleaned up, then helps him from the office to the parking garage. He wraps one arm around Oikawa’s waist, and without pause, Oikawa, swings an arm across his shoulders, forearm braced across his neck. It seems Oikawa is done demanding he stand on his own two feet. This is not simply a weak knee, but a whole body buckling under the weight of its mortality. 

Against him, Oikawa is warm. 

After stepping from the elevator, it takes Ushijima a moment to realize Oikawa has frozen beside him. He follows his gaze to the far wall. 

Ah. 

What does Oikawa see, looking there? Does he feel the wind knocked from his lungs, or is he remembering teeth in his neck? Even that second time, taken without warning, taken with force, Oikawa clung to him. Does Oikawa hear the old motor spitting to his rescue, or does he look at that wall and hear himself moan? Is it fear or bliss? 

"Considering a third?"

"Nope," Oikawa hums, except his voice is wrecked so it comes out warbled, bouncing off the walls. "Wondering what it'd be like to suck you off." 

Ushijima barks a laugh, startling even himself by the force of it. Perhaps Oikawa is not the only one still putting himself back together. "Really. Now? You cannot hold yourself upright.” 

“I give as good as I get." 

“I am not sure how much you have left to give.” 

“Don’t underestimate me.” 

Ushijima smiles to himself, small. “I do not repeat mistakes.” 

The light goes on behind Oikawa’s eyes, pleased.

"Take me home with you." 

Not what Ushijima expected to hear. 

"I-” Oikawa starts defensively, but stops just as quickly. He is not so put back together that he can speak with his usual eloquence. “We can't just leave it at- There are terms, aren't there? I have questions. Like, how long have you known, since when, and- and I need to get cleaned up before-" He cuts himself off. Shakes his head. Sways. 

Ushijima mentally completes Oikawa's statement: He needs to clean up before going home, the home he shares with two werewolves. 

It occurs to Ushijima that Oikawa may not only have kept secrets from him, but is keeping secrets from his own people. Oikawa is calculating, clever, and he knows perhaps better than most that one cannot achieve any true power without information behind it. If he is smart - and he is - he would keep all but the most pertinent details to himself. 

And perhaps it is foolish, to allow the werewolves' spy into his home, the place where he sleeps through sunlight, the place where he is truly vulnerable. But it would be far more foolish to betray the vampire whose word stands between Aoba Johsai and a cabal of hungry vampires weaned on their blood. And Oikawa may be reckless, but he is no fool. 

Ushijima decides he can oblige. 

He guides Oikawa into the passenger seat, the black upholstery turning his bloodless pallor nearly blue by the washed out interior light. He expects Oikawa to fall back into unconsciousness, lulled to rest by the road and the motor and a body that really, truly should have collapsed under itself nights ago. It has been a very long time since Ushijima was mortal, but he has a sense of this mortal’s limits, and Oikawa is running on fumes. 

But he should have known better. Oikawa might bare his throat and beg and talk about getting on his knees - but he has pride. He clings to consciousness and keeps his eyes on the road, even has his head droops into his palm. 

"You can rest, Tooru." 

Oikawa straightens in his seat, and smiles at him in the window. His smile only makes the bags beneath his eyes more pronounced. "I'll rest when I'm dead." 

"For a human who runs with wolves, you are very conscious of your mortality." 

Oikawa barks a laugh. The sharp, ugly laugh that still thrills him. "Was that a joke? My friends don't let me forget it! 'Oh, this is too dangerous, Oikawa, you're too weak - go home.' Fuck off. I'm here now, aren't I?"

Oikawa isn't really talking to him, at this point. "I hit a nerve," he observes. 

"Shut up." 

"How did they ever put you in a room with me?" 

"Mm, Mr. Dangerous." Oikawa waves a hand. "I was only supposed to watch, but courting you was so much more _efficient._ And what they didn't know-"

"Could hurt you. You lied to them." 

"And _you're_ smiling."

Was he? Ushijima hadn't noticed. But he is- impressed. Oikawa knew what he wanted, and he took it.

“So this thing with Inarizaki," Oikawa says abruptly, shutting down any comments on his pack.

"A territorial matter." They are abandoning the forest, and so his people need new land to hunt. They would have sought the docks eventually; this simply moved the time table. "We need the land." 

"But the _club-"_

 _"Is insufficient,"_ he snaps. "You watched me for a time. You know I do not feed there. Did you ever wonder _why?"_

Their tenuous, post-fuck civility evaporates. 

"You fed on _me."_

"You were more than the typical clientele." 

"So, what, you don't like humans, but I was just pretty enough for you to stick your fangs in?" 

_Beauty had nothing to do with it._

From the moment Oikawa tapped his shoulder, Ushijima knew he was playing some kind of game. It was his big brown eyes, brandished like killing points; it was the smile that never reached them; it was his quick and ugly laugh. 

But Oikawa _is_ beautiful. 

"You are an exception to the rule," he says instead. "Does that surprise you? You've been the exception for quite some time. A human among wolves. A mortal among the dead." 

Oikawa is an exception, and he is exceptional. 

When Tendou told him he intended to make Goshiki one of them, Ushijima felt certain he would never understand that desire. Was it a kind of narcissism? To see yourself, reflected in the other? To create something wholly dependent on you? Ushijima had no desire for a fledgling. 

Oikawa proves himself the exception once again. 

They drive in silence for several blocks. Busy nightlife fade into distant lights, which stretch up into apartment buildings, each taller than the last. They line the streets and crowd the horizon, oppressive in their omnipresence. For this reason he lives in a penthouse suite, despite the security risks. It is worth it, to see the sky uncrowded by buildings. 

Cities have their place, but he will miss hunting in the forest.

"Why?" Oikawa asks, barely audible. He clears his throat. "I've never seen you feed on-" 

Ushijima thinks the other shoe just dropped. 

"....Never seen you feed on… humans." 

"We need the docks," he repeats for the last time. 

They park at the foot of his building; an unassuming skyscraper, no more or less elegant than the buildings around it.

"Why," Oikawa says again, but the question is different this time: Not _why not humans?_ but _why only wolves?_

"Why do we do anything, Tooru?" 

Automatically, he answers, "For power." 

After all, what else do vampires want? Violence and blood, and violence and blood.

"For power," he agrees, and exits the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lore dump? Anyone say lore dump?  
> Author thrives on comments!  
>  ~~and is suffering thru school pls give me comments~~


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait until Friday to post this but (surprising no one) I got too excited. Any attempt to keep a regular posting schedule is pure hubris on my part.  
> Enjoy!!!

Oikawa expected an apartment aesthetically similar to the office he is accustomed to: The dim lights and oppressive atmosphere, its charged air. But the apartment building is - ordinary. Residential. Expensive, sure. He spotted several luxury cars just lining the streets, even _nicer_ cars tucked into their respective numbered lots. But ordinary. 

A short-sighted expectation, in retrospect. It is just that the Ushijima Oikawa knows exists only in that office, backlit by the club, face cast in shadow, eyes aglow. He knew Ushijima only among nightlife, and had no reason to believe they would ever know each other beyond it. 

_Take me home with you._

Oikawa follows him into his building. The elevator opens into a hallway with only one door, tucked unassuming into the corner. A voice box sits beside the door, which implies that Ushijima has company often enough to install something to greet them. It is the only change made to an otherwise plain entryway. The carpet is a hotel beige, the walls wallpapered white. Not a single window in sight. Oikawa eyes the voice box as Ushijima unlocks his door. It isn’t particularly fancy, except of course that its mere presence is an extravagance. 

Ushijima opens the door to a spacious room. It is not sparse enough to be called spartan, but Oikawa expected more from someone of Ushijima’s means. More than these dark wood floors and white walls completely void of decoration. The living room steps up onto a stretch of elevated floor space, set against a long, wall-length window. A familiar touch. In the movies, it might be the spot where a Bond villain keeps a bar stocked with their finest whiskey, top shelf bourbon. Here the space is occupied only by a wooden desk the same shade as the floor. Doors line both sides of the space. 

On the walk up, Oikawa had ambition. They’d get inside and he’d corner Ushijima, demand answers, explanations, push and push until Ushijima spilled his secrets the same way Ushijima pushed him. 

When the door shuts behind them, Oikawa instead turns to Ushijima and demands, “Bed?” 

Ushijima points to a door left partially ajar. Oikawa toes off his shoes and makes a beeline for that door. A large, mauve duvet peeks through the open door, but on his way across the room Oikawa is caught by the window instead. It looks out onto the city and this high, at this hour, the streetlamps below glitter like jewels, or stars. Or, he supposes, shards of glass catching in the light. Looking down feels like what he imagines it might be like to look up at the night sky someplace far away, unpolluted by city lights. It is the sort of thing he’s only seen in movies; he's never traveled far enough to see a proper night sky. Once, he thought he might travel after college - see the world, see the night sky, see it all. But there is so much keeping him here, too many people to protect, too many memories with their claws in him; the city will never let go. He thinks he might be okay with that. This view, here, is enough. 

“Oikawa.” 

“Hm?” 

“You wished to sleep?”

He twists toward the voice and finds himself looking down at Ushijima, only to realize at some point he took that step up to the window. He blinks. He drifted off, after a sort. It is so hard to keep his head straight, after… Well, he can hardly be blamed. 

“What is it with vampires and giant windows?” he says, just for something to say, something to keep his head above water. 

The aesthetic choice makes sense for someone like Tendou, who spends most of his time behind the bar, working its crowds and chatting up regulars. A person like him must get lonely, cooped up behind a desk. The window down into his element made his office bearable. 

But Ushijima is a solitary predator, who does not even feed on- who-- 

Oikawa swallows thickly, makes himself look back out onto the streets. Each time he thinks he has his head above the waves, the current yanks him back under.

He shakes his head, forces lightness back into his voice even as he sinks, sinks, sinks into the dark. “This window even looks outside! Can’t the sun hurt you?”

Ushijima looks at him sidelong, Oikawa is struck by the familiarity: Poised before the window, with Ushijima to his side. He finds himself relaxing into it. They are in Ushijima’s home, but not much has changed at all. 

Except that they had sex. 

Except that Ushijima knows about Aoba Johsai.

Except that _everything_ has changed. 

Surely there are terms. Ushijima would never give something for nothing. He wouldn’t anger his own people for _nothing._

Oikawa steels himself. “Tell me about Aoba Johsai.” 

“To business, then.” 

Not a question, but Oikawa nods anyway. They move to the couch. The sitting area is as sparse as the rest of his home. A coffee table sits between the furniture, occupied only by a single book. At least the table isn’t glass. Oikawa sits. 

The couch is large enough for two. Uhsijima joins him. Their thighs nearly touch. But rather than the proximity, all Oikawa can notice is how _comfortable_ the couch is, a lot more comfortable than the one in Tendou’s office, and Oikawa isn’t even drunk. This couch is dark, plush, and doesn’t smell like stale blood. He lets himself sink into it; and where he gives an inch, exhaustion takes a mile. It crashes over him like a wave, forces his head back down beneath cool, welcoming dark. What was he doing here, again? The venom has worn off but it’s still so hard to _think._ He shakes his head. He has _questions._ Iwaizumi, Aoba Johsai - they’re all depending on him. 

But even as he shakes his head to clear his mind, the sensation of water in his ears remains. The whole scene is muffled, far away. 

“Tell me what you said before.” He frowns at his hands, embarrassed. He should remember something so important, but, “I was…” 

“Nearly unconscious.” Ushijima finishes for him. “But you heard all of it. This is not complicated. We will not do anything to Aoba Johsai.” 

_Not complicated,_ he says. But Oikawa cannot make _sense_ of it. 

Before he can push any further, however, Ushijima continues. “And you are nearly unconscious now.” 

Oikawa opens his mouth to object, but his lungs feel full of water. His head is stuffed with cotton. Waves crash and crash and crash over his head. 

“We will discuss this after you’ve slept. I do not enjoy repeating myself.” 

Despite all the questions burning at his mind, Oikawa’s traitorous body yawns. 

_Terms. There must be terms to all this. What does Ushijima_ want _?_

But the terms will be there when he wakes just as surely as they are in place now, somewhere out there, far beneath him in the murky dark. 

Is it just as murky for Ushijima, he wonders? Does his werewolf affiliation complicate things for him too, or are the complications a one-way street? Probably the latter. If Ushijima could throw his weight hard enough to make an entire pack off-limits, then nothing could complicate things for him unless he wanted it that way. 

Oikawa always knew Ushijima is powerful, but seeing that power applied so close to home is- 

His head spins. Oikawa stands, swaying with the waves, but on his own two feet. He puts the matter from his mind as best he can. For something else to focus on, he asks, quiet, “Do vampires even sleep?”

“We do.”

“But do you _need_ to?”

Oikawa knows so much about what it means to be a werewolf. Iwaizumi’s sleep changes with the moon, shifts nocturnal and back again like clockwork. But he still _needs_ sleep; only his circadian rhythms change. For all he knows of wolves, the only things Oikawa knows of vampires are what stories passed between cubs like campfire tales.

_Vampires can’t eat normal food._

_Wine turns to ash in their mouths._

_They don’t show up on film, because they have no souls._ That, at least, he knows is false. In all likelihood, it is the photographs he took that damned him. 

_They’ll eat you alive and make you like it._

That last one is true. For him, at least. He is pretty sure all vampires don’t _fuck_ like Ushijima, though, and- 

And he is going to have to process that, at some point. He will have to look his reflection in the eye and face down how the thought of getting fucked bloody had him moaning, how he _wanted_ to bleed and to be used and- 

And on second thought, he is not going to face that. Not until he’s dead. 

“Not often” Ushijima pulls him back into the moment. He’s good at that, keeping him here. Aware, if not grounded.

“That’s…” Oikawa tries to imagine the nights he spent sitting alone in an empty house, waiting for his friends to come home, wondering where they were and if they’re okay and picturing a thousand ways they might’ve died. He imagines all that without even the temporary relief of sleep. “That sounds lonely,” he decides, and goes to lay, alone, in Ushijima’s bed.

Some hours later, Oikawa wakes gasping, every muscle in his body coiled tight and _aching._ His hands fly to his neck, scrambling at imaginary weight, at fangs, at- 

At nothing. 

Oikawa opens his eyes into cool, pitch darkness. His heart hammers in his ears, a rushing tide. He drags himself into consciousness from the murk, sloughing off those last panicked remnants of his dream. Sweat stings his cheek, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. 

The dream recedes. Oikawa rarely remembers his dreams, and tonight’s dream is no exception. It leaves him only with a vague sense of panic, leaves his nerves alight, over-sensitive and… 

And he’s hard. His jeans are damp.

 _What the fuck._

He turns back into the murk, wades back in after his dream like a man on a mission. He remembers-

_Something white and glistening like bone- fangs in his neck, unmistakable, burned into his body- hands around his throat-_

No face to the hands. No mouth to the teeth. And no skin in what was pretty fucking obviously a _sex dream._

Oikawa swings his legs over the bed, ignores the sparks in his vision and immediately shucks off his pants. He can’t see where they landed but he doesn’t particularly care. They should just be burned.

On the edge of Ushijima’s bed, half-naked and alone, Oikawa takes stock. What time is it? He bends and feels blindly for the lump in his discarded jeans, pulls out his phone - _35% battery -_ and checks the time. 7:53 p.m.

He slept nearly sixteen hours. _Iwaizumi is going to kill me._ One thing at a time. Oikawa unlocks his phone, and types out a quick text.

_ > I know I said I'd never text you from this phone unless it was an emergency but you can stop freaking out now Iw- _

That sounds like a coded message for help. Maybe just keep it simple.

_ > It's Oikawa. I'm safe. _

Too dramatic. Iwaizumi will only freak out more. What can he say that would make him worry _less?_

_ > You can call off the search now, Iwa. I got laid. _

Good enough. Oikawa sends the text.

Not even a moment later:

_ > WHAT THE HELL??? _

Before he can respond, his phone buzzes again- and again in quick succession, a flurry of confused (but not angry, not _scared)_ texts running across the screen. Oikawa smiles to himself, and mutes his phone.

Smiling pulls at his cheek, scabs cracking. His cheek is perhaps the least of his aches but the easiest to focus on, and besides, it’s his _face._ Each cut throbs in time with his pulse. He wants to scratch it, but settles for ghosting his fingers across the scabs. Ushijima did a fair job of picking out the glass, better than Oikawa probably could have managed, but it could use some actual bandages. Probably some antibiotic ointment. If this _scars-_

He gets to his feet and fumbles for a light. Ushijima must know he is awake by now, if not by the tenor of his breath then surely by each heavy step he takes toward the wall. Instead of a lightswitch he finds a door to the master bath. 

_Screw it,_ he thinks, and helps himself to a shower. 

He showers standing up, legs growing steadier the longer he’s awake. It’s something of a novelty, all things considered. Oikawa anticipated more… fallout. A raging headache. Shaking limbs. But when he looked in the mirror, he just looked a little tired. On the whole, he feels fine. Sore. Maybe a little hungry. Like any other morning-after. 

It feels like cheating. There should be some kind of price, some physical atonement for last night, for getting off on- on all of that.

But he doesn’t even feel _bad._ He steals Ushijima’s soap, washes three layers of dried cum from his stomach, and all he really thinks is that he still owes Ushijima an orgasm. 

There’s something deeply wrong with him. 

He kind of doesn’t care.

He steps from the bathroom back into Ushijima’s bedroom, steam billowing in behind him. Oikawa shudders. He can never quite seem to get warm these days, not even if he takes his showers scalding and especially not after bleeding. Eager to stay warm, he dries off as quick as possible, wincing as the towel drags over his thigh. The punctures there are probably the cleanest of his wounds, too out of it to move by the time Ushijima's mouth found him there, but they are also the most sensitive.

Once dry, he pulls on his shirt. His hair drips onto his shoulders, but the sleeves are long and stop some body heat from leeching away. His jeans are a no-go, so before he can think too hard about it, he opens the closet and slides on a pair of Ushijima's slacks. The two of them are close enough in height, but where Oikawa is lean, Ushijima is built sturdy and thick. The fabric slides oddly over his thigh, rubbing the spot where he was bitten just enough to make him suck in a breath. Oikawa fists a hand in the loose fabric and tells his libido to shut the hell up. It’s just a _scab._

He takes a steadying breath, and steps out into the living room. 

Ushijima is seated at his desk near the window, frowning at something on his computer. Oh, the things Oikawa could _learn_ from that machine. 

Except, he doesn't have to spy anymore. Aoba Johsai is off-limits. And with their safety squared away, what else does he need to know? Mission accomplished. Oikawa played the long game and he won. 

So why does this feel like only the beginning?

Ushijima looks up from a laptop and meets his gaze. Oikawa summons a smile. The slacks hang low on his hips, and he thinks maybe he should play that up. But it's an old instinct. Useless, now that Ushijima knows the truth about him, now that Ushijima has been thoroughly seduced despite that. And how long has he known? 

Oikawa walks toward Ushijima, seated at the veritable head of the room, backlit by a night slowly coming to life.

"Well aren't you the picture of power?" he coos. The effect is somewhat ruined when his voice cracks halfway through. He doesn't remember screaming enough to wreck his throat this much, but he must have. He rests his hands on the dark wood and leans into Ushijima's space. "Do you have a ring I should kiss?" 

"Tooru." Ushijima shuts his computer, then looks him over. Somehow, his name from Ushijima's lips sounds like both admonishment for flirting and warm welcome rolled into one. "How do you feel?" 

"Fine," he says honestly. _Great,_ part of him wants to say. _I feel amazing. Fuck me again._ They could do it right here, on his desk. Stretched over it, face toward the window, or maybe just between his legs. 

Oikawa thinks he should have taken a colder shower. 

"I feel fine."

“Hm.” Ushijima takes his chin between a forefinger and thumb, turning it to examine his cheek. Examining him, again. It is like a ritual. Ushijima looks, he takes, and then he looks again. 

What is Ushijima looking for, when he does this? When he looks, does he see him for the aberration he is? 

That thumb brushes carefully over his scabs. Oikawa suppresses a shudder, eyes fluttering shut. That dream whispers behind his eyes, from someplace deep and half-remembered: Hands, large, cold, and tight around his throat. These hands. 

He can’t _stand_ this anymore. 

Oikawa crosses his arms and holds down Ushijima's gaze, summons as much authority as he can muster. "Let's talk terms." 

Ushijima draws his hand away. And holding his gaze, Oikawa thinks Ushijima seems- pleased. By Oikawa's attempt at authority, or by whatever he found written in the scabs across his cheek?

They retire to the couch, a mirror of last night, Ushijima on his right, where he might see his cheek most clearly. He wonders if Ushijima chose his seat for that reason, or-

Or, Oikawa sat down first. Perhaps he is the one who chose to display himself like this. 

Oikawa shakes his head, and makes himself focus on the matter at hand. He has all his faculties tonight. He is going to have answers. He will make sense of all this before the night is through. 

"Tell me what you told me last night. Word for word, if you don't mind." 

Ushijima gives him a slow, measured blink. "You are off-limits." 

"That's not what I meant!" 

Ushijima's face doesn't change, but his eyes flash with mirth. 

Is Ushijima _teasing_ him? 

"I said we will not touch Aoba Johsai, and my people are not to touch you." 

Oikawa nods slowly, but inside he is reeling. 

"How long have you known? From the beginning?" 

Ushijima laughs. "I knew you wanted something, but no, I did not grasp the extent of your ambition when I met you." 

Something about Ushijima's laughter settles on his skin like goosebumps, thrills him. He deceived Ushijima Wakatoshi. 

"So the photos, then?" 

"No." 

_"No?"_

"Do you know how many parties would pay for a set of photos like the ones you took? They proved you had ulterior motive. I knew that when I took you up to feed."

"And it didn't bother you?" 

Ushijima simply looks at him. Looks at him with a flash of the hunger Oikawa felt in him that night, shoved against the concrete, teeth in his neck. 

Oikawa cuts the memory off. He can't control his body around this topic anymore. Maybe he never could. He crosses his legs, bites back another hiss as the fabric brushes the marks on his thigh. 

"Okay," he bites out, mostly at himself. "So you didn't give a damn about the photos, you just broke my phone for fun?" 

"I gave you what you deserved." 

"You gave me a _job."_

"Mm." 

For a moment, Oikawa thinks that is the end of it. Ushijima knows knowledge is power and wants to keep the timeline to himself. But then, he goes on. 

"I do not give jobs to people I do not know."

"So… you looked into me." 

Ushijima sent a phone to his house. The house he shares with Matsukawa. Hanamaki. The property, held in Iwaizumi's name. 

"I developed a basic understanding. But the extent of your involvement-" Ushijima frowns. "When I saw you in their forest. Only then did I understand." 

His blood turns to ice. "You were there?" 

Oikawa rubs at his wrist, picking at the scars in his palm. None of them saw Ushijima, or Tendou, or Semi, or _anyone-_ But he was there. He was there and he could have tore open Iwaizumi's throat but he didn't and he didn't because- 

Because Oikawa was there. Because he warned them in time. He suspected, but now he _knows._

Ushijima does not answer, but he doesn't need to say a thing. 

Oikawa swallows. He forces his hands to his sides. He makes himself calm. Focus.

"So then what do you want from me?" 

_Stop reeling. Did you think he didn't know? Of course he was there. It doesn't change a thing._ It does not change his allegiance and it does not change how Ushijima fucked him and most important it does not change- it is in fact the _reason_ for this- this gift. 

"Do you want my blood?" 

But that's stupid, because Ushijima does not feed on humans - except for him, because he is an _exception-_

His head spins and he can't make it _stop._

"No."

"Then _what?_ You don't hand out something for nothing. I know that. I wouldn't either. So what is it you want?" And what else does he even have to give? "Sex?" Not much of a price at all.

"Is it so difficult to imagine I want your loyalty?" 

Oikawa shuts his mouth. _Yes,_ he wants to shout. _Yes!_ You are a vampire and vampires are only loyal to their whims. He does not want to be a _whim._ What use does someone like Ushijima have for a human's loyalty? 

"You are difficult to use if I cannot predict your priorities. I removed a complication from your equation, that's all. If I give you this, then my priorities are your priorities. Is that not correct?" 

"You... still want to use me." 

Ushijima looks at him like he is stupid. 

"Even after I misled you?" 

The look continues. 

"You misled me and you succeeded, for a time. Of course I want to use you." 

Oikawa covers his face, something like laughter but not _quite_ laughter bubbling in his chest. 

"A good vampire uses the tools at its disposal," Ushijima says over him, tone plain, like he is merely giving a lesson. 

"And if I'm not at your disposal?" 

"As you said. I do not give something for nothing." 

He figured as much, but he needed to know for certain. He needs to know every inch of these terms. How else is he supposed to maneuver through it? How else will he use it to his advantage? 

"What I stop at this? What if I decide this isn't for me?" 

Ushijima answers without pause. "You won't." 

And can he blame Ushijima for that confidence? Even if Aoba Johsai never hung in the balance...

Ordinary little boys do not offer their hand to snarling little pups. Ordinary boys do not watch their best friend warp into a beast and decide, _I want that._

Still, he needs to know. "But if I _did?"_

"Aoba Johsai was not without protection before you." 

It is as Iwaizumi said: unlike that pack of outsiders, Aoba Johsai is established in this city. They have friends in the law, treaties with the other packs, and land to call theirs, land that has always been theirs. As a child, their land wrapped around the city like a half-moon. One could scarcely step off the main roads without stumbling onto their properties. Oikawa has as many memories of stealing sweets from the Iwaizumis' diner as he has memories running through the woods, tripping over roots ant, pretending to be more than he was. 

Once, Aoba Johsai _was_ this city. They are less than they used to be, but they are not _nothing._ They have their own protections. 

But that is not what Oikawa truly meant to ask. 

"If I fall from your good graces, will they be a target? Retribution?"

Not that he plans to fall from Ushijima's grace. He likes it here. 

"No more or less than they were before." 

"That's fair." Oikawa nods. "One more question." 

"Just one?" 

"For now." 

It is perhaps the most important question. The most likely. 

"If I died-" 

Ushijima stiffens. 

Oikawa does his best to even his tone. It is just mortality, after all. "If I died in your service. What happens then?" 

"You won't die." 

"Bold claim!" Oikawa laughs, genuine laughter this time, not that manic half-sob which spits from him so often in Ushijima's presence. "I don't know if you've noticed, but my life is pretty dangerous lately. See, I met this vampire. He likes me. He's nearly killed me twice."

"Just once." 

"Oh, really?" 

"I know your limits, Tooru." 

Oikawa shuts his mouth. _I know your limits._ Should that comfort, or terrify?

Ushijima admitted, in the space of a single word: _You made me lose control. I nearly killed you once._

It is enough to terrify. 

But that also means last night, Ushijima did not nearly kill him by mistake. That is a comfort. And yet.

Yet it means this: Ushijima _nearly_ killed him, on purpose. He brought him to a different edge. Because he knows exactly where _nearly_ is. Every edge. In every sense. 

Oikawa swallows. "My-" He clears his throat - _ow -_ and straightens in his seat. "My question stands. What would happen?' 

For a moment, Ushijima says nothing, still rigid, hand clasped tightly on his knee. 

"If you died," he says slowly, "Aoba Johsai would be no consequence to me." Something violent snaps behind his eyes, roils beneath that placid tone. 

"I don't need _revenge,_ Ushijima. I need to know what happens when I die." 

"I would not honor your memory." 

"So you'd hunt them again." 

Ushijima shrugs stiffly. "I would not require your loyalty if you are dead." 

He figured that too, but he'd hoped- Maybe Ushijima liked him enough. Enough to honor his memory, and continue to keep Aoba Johsai in his graces.

"Well," Oikawa smiles. "I suppose I'll just endeavor not to die."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I asked for comments last chapter and you guys really delivered 😭😭😭 thank you so mucchhh. I've reread them all at least twenty times, I cherish each one like a starving man cherishes a meal. Wahhh.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little later than usual, but here's the next chapter. Thanks for waiting, everyone!

Oikawa tells his cabbie to stop at a drugstore and leaves the tab running. It's Ushijima's money, anyway, and he _should_ pay for fucking up his face, if only in the literal sense. 

He picked the smallest corner store he could find. This one has a bright orange awning, a rusty quarter-operated newsstand, and bike rack that's seen better days. It looks dingy, but when he steps inside he falters, momentarily blinded by the sudden fluorescence. The cashier glances up at him from her book on the counter, nods hesitantly, then goes back to reading. The store is otherwise empty. Oikawa beelines for the shuttered pharmacy anyway, feeling exposed. The fluorescents dim toward the back of the store; he lets out a breath as he browses through the band-aids, absently grazing fingers over his cheek. Band-aids aren't really going to cut it, he thinks, and wanders further down the aisle. Gauze, then? But that's so _obtrusive._ The idea is to cover up his injuries, not paint over them in neon. He scowls at his choices. 

"I think- uhm, I think," a light voice says behind him, "This might be what you need?" 

Oikawa turns around to find the little blonde cashier girl beside him, holding out a kit about the size of her cupped hands. Her eyes are enormous, shimmery, and somehow the fluorescent light flatters her. Or maybe she’s just that pretty. 

"Uhm, I mean I- Oh no, I'm sorry! Was that too presumptuous I don't mean to imply you couldn't have found it on your own but we're the only ones here and I guess it is kind of my job-"

Oikawa takes the kit. The girl nods at him, then spins on her heels. 

"Wait!" 

She cautiously turns back around. 

"Do you, uhm... Which of these would I take for..." 

Her nervous frown breaks into an even more hesitant smile. "General aches and pains?" 

Oikawa scratches absently at his uninjured cheek. "Pretty much."

"Hmm..." She turns away from him to browse the selection of painkillers. As she looks, her nervous demeanor falls away.

"I have a stubborn knee, if that helps," he says easily. He can barely admit his knee to _Iwaizumi,_ who was there when he blew it out the first time. But it's easier to say these things to strangers, sometimes. This girl is disarming. Kind. 

She selects a bottle. Without judgement, she says, “This should work. It doesn’t interact with venom, though it probably isn’t the best for achy joints, so sorry about that.” 

“It’s… been a good sixteen hours? At least.” 

She hums, and selects a different bottle, this one with blue packaging. “Okay. Then this one is probably best!” She starts toward the register, so Oikawa follows, reaching for his wallet as he goes. 

He pays for his things, and that should be the end of this embarrassing little side adventure, but she doesn’t bag up his items. Instead she looks him over. His cheek, of course. It stands out. He can’t blame her. But she goes on to looks at his neck, his hands, then her own hands twisting the pill bottle between her fingers. “I’m, uhm, do you- do you need help? With anything! But specifically I meant your- the cuts, and things, not that you don’t seem capable of doing it yourself, but I’d feel bad if I didn’t ask- Not that you’re a charity case either! Oh no, I’m not doing this right.” She sets down the pill bottle and gathers herself. “I’m studying medicine. I’d like to help.” 

“...Why?” 

She blinks at him. Her shimmery gaze seems suddenly much clearer than before. “...Do I need a reason?” 

In his word? Yeah. Absolutely. Only fools gave something for nothing.

It’s kind of nice to interact with someone _ordinary._

“I guess not.” 

She smiles and has him come around the counter to sit in her chair. He has to lower it so she can comfortably reach his face. The intercom crackles with some pop song he doesn’t recognize as she applies antibiotic ointment to his cheek. It's strangely intimate, for a drug store in the evening.

“I’m Yachi.” 

“Oikawa.” 

She makes an acknowledging noise, mostly focused on cutting appropriately sized pieces of tape and gauze. “I know I was kind of rambling before, but I did mean it, about… If you need help. With anything.” 

Oh. _Oh._ She thinks- God, and he really must look it. Bites on both sides of his neck, the left side more like a tear than anything. It stretches back and below his shirt. It is good she can’t see the cuts on his chest, or she’d _really_ freak, but his cheek paints enough of the story to raise an ordinary person’s concern. 

Oikawa chews his lower lip. It’s really none of her business, but Yachi has gone out of her way to help him. She deserves at least _some_ explanation, doesn’t she? He doesn’t want her to worry. Anxious already seems like her default setting. 

But the thought of explaining makes him more nauseous than vertigo. The most pertinent details are also the most shameful, and he can’t admit them, not even to a stranger.

“It’s handled.” 

Yachi frowns- but only briefly. She keeps working, hands sure of themselves in a way her words aren’t. A few more pop songs pass in relative silence. 

“There,” she declares, smiling. “You’re good to go!” 

But her hands linger in the space between them. “Unless, uhm-” She crouches and starts looking through her purse. “I have these- Well, they won’t work for the one that tore, but-” She produces an ordinary-looking tin from her purse, but when she takes out one of the plasters from within, he realizes they are not _quite_ ordinary. They're like two tiny band-aids held together, oval in shape, approximately a fangs’ width apart. Neat little plasters the same shade as her skin, unobtrusive and easily overlooked.

“Do you carry more of these?” He blurts. 

“Oh! Ah, no, they’re kind of a specialty item, I guess? But-” She pushes the tin into his hand. “Here!” 

“You’re way too nice.” 

She beams. 

“I feel bad taking advantage-”

“Don’t worry about that! I’m the one taking advantage, I mean, using you for first-aid practice.” 

“No, I mean- I bought the other stuff, but,” he flexes his fingers around the tin. “I haven’t paid for thee.” 

_“Ohh,_ is that what you’re worried about? Don’t worry, I have a bunch more at home. Those are just what I keep on me. Always be prepared, right?” 

Oikawa laughs. “You’ll make an excellent doctor.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you came here. You _are_ okay?” 

“I’m exactly where I want to be.” 

“Okay.” She nodes to herself. “That’s good, then, I think. Eat something good when you get where you’re going and take care of yourself, okay?” 

“I will. I can’t waste all this excellent work.” 

Yachi looks at her hands and smiles. 

* * *

Oikawa gets out of the cab to find Iwaizumi’s car parked in the driveway, its rusted metal frame at home among their wild lawn, weed-choked pavement and the recyclables left out for pickup. A visit from his best friend, or a visit from the leader of the pack? Oikawa pauses on the sidewalk and checks his phone, scanning over the texts he took such pains to avoid reading too closely on the drive over. 

Visit from his best friend, he thinks. 

“Are you coming inside or what?”

Oikawa nearly drops his phone, but recovers quick enough, and looks up to find Iwaizumi with his arms crossed in the doorway.

“Well, you’ve waited this long!” He makes his way up the walk. With each step, tension ebbs away - for the first night in a long time. Iwaizumi is here on a social call. Iwaizumi is here for _him,_ and there is no looming threat, Ushijima and his ilk all squared away, slipped into his back pocket. 

For the first night in a long time, Oikawa truly goes home. 

Iwaizumi steps aside to let him in, shuts the door behind him, and smacks the back of his head. 

“Iwa-chan!” 

“That’s for making us wait, asshole.” 

Before Oikawa can rub away the sting, Iwaizumi hugs him, and any glib response Oikawa thought to give dies on his lips. Iwaizumi squeezes his arms to his side; Oikawa can only stand still and let himself be held, so he does. _Is this okay?_ Is it safe? _Smart?_ What could Iwaizumi learn, from just a hug? 

But he is so sick of wearing masks. This is _home._ It doesn’t seem right that Ushijima should unmask him utterly, while with Iwaizumi he continues to keep secrets. Oikawa lets out a breath, and sinks into Iwaizumi’s side.

 _Warm,_ he thinks, and buries his head in the crook of Iwaizumi’s neck, breathes in the faint, familiar smell of damp earth. He shuts his eyes. 

And Iwaizumi goes rigid. A moment passes. They are so close, Oikawa hears more than sees Iwaizumi’s nostrils flare. 

“H-hey, Iwa, what’s the deal?” But he has an idea of what Iwaizumi smells on him. Ushijima, sex. 

“Quiet.” 

“But-”

Iwaizumi disentangles, but stays in his personal space, eyes fixed on him with familiar animal intensity. It takes a moment to work out where he’s looking, and why. 

_“Honestly."_ Oikawa resists the urge to cover his neck. It’s nothing Iwaizumi hasn’t seen before. Maybe not as often as Matsu and Makki, not as used to it. But it’s not like he doesn’t _know._

_“‘Got laid?'"_

“Don’t be a baby.” 

“You’re such an _asshole.”_

Oikawa braces for Iwaizumi to smack him again, but Iwaizumi stays stock-still, which is worse. 

“Our asshole!” Hanamaki pipes in, a goddamn lifeline. “Y’got laid, huh?” 

Iwaizumi works his jaw for a second. 

“Was it-” 

“You and Ushijima, or what?” Hanamaki beats back this tension by the skin of his teeth. 

Oikawa could kiss him, but the tension is still wrung around his throat like heavy fists. Words won’t come. Iwaizumi keeps _looking_ at him. 

“Mhm.” 

_Fuck it,_ he thinks, and tilts his head. _Go on. Ask me if I’m getting fucked for the pack._

Instead, Iwaizumi asks, “Did you want to?” 

“Did I-” 

In Iwaizumi's halting voice, an echo: Goshiki asking, _Is it good?_

He sucks in a breath and laughs. Relief pries those fists from his throat. “Of course I- Come on, when has anyone made me do something I didn’t want to do?” 

Iwaizumi laughs back, shaky and not quite real, but an earnest attempt, and that will have to be enough. 

“Come on,” Oikawa says, and does his best not to sound like pleading, even though he is. He puts a friendly hand on Iwaizumi’s arm. “Let’s go get something to eat. I’m starving.” 

“Sure, If you’re paying."

Oikawa sticks out his lip. “I’m unemployed.” 

Matsu fixes him with his flat gaze. “You have enough money to buy drinks every night.”

“It’s cute you think I buy my own drinks.” 

Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. Finally, finally, the last of their tension goes away. It is not a perfect homecoming - but things are hardly perfect, these days. 

“I'm sure there are leftovers. Kindaichi always preps way too much.” 

“No wait, let’s stay home, I want Iwa-chan to cook for me.” 

“Fine.” He relents, already turning to head toward the kitchen, but Oikawa thinks he might have smiled. “At least you’re cheaper to feed than those two.”

Oikawa toes off his shoes and drapes his coat over the back of their couch before following after Iwaizumi through the house and into the kitchen. 

By the time he reaches the kitchen, Iwaizumi is already looking through the fridge. "You're the only person who'd ever accuse me of being a cheap date," he says to his back, grinning. “There are some benefits to being human, you know.”

“Am I going deaf?” Iwaizumi straightens and lets the fridge swing shut. “Did you just say there are benefits to being human?” 

Did he say that? Oikawa crosses his arms, tilts his head up and away. He does not want to lose whatever mood has settled over the house. It isn’t _happy,_ but it’s the closest they’ve come to content in a while. 

He looks anywhere but at Iwaizumi, and finds his gaze drawn sideways to the map still covering their kitchen table. Even from here, Nekoma’s bright pink highlighter stands out against a swath of ugly purple-orange. Contested territory. In all this, he barely paused to wonder what the other packs might be facing. It’s the same throughout the city, isn’t it? With vampires in your city, someone is always prey.

 _So long as it isn’t Aoba Johsai._

Iwaizumi, perhaps sensing their hesitantly good mood is about to break, goes on. “Anyway, I can’t cook for you if you ain’t got shit to cook.” He crosses his arms, a petulant mirror. “What the hell have you been eating? Milk and eggs?” 

“You can make omelettes with milk and eggs!”

_“Eat your fucking veggies.”_

“No fair, you’re a carnivore!” 

Hanamaki cackles from the living room. 

“Matsu!” Iwaizumi shouts, as if just remembering the pair of them are here. “Come on, we gotta go get groceries.” 

Oikawa huffs, but cannot stop his smile even if he wanted to. Their banter is so normal he almost forgets everything else, until Iwaizumi leaves with Matsukawa. His car pops once, stutters to life, and fades away down the block. Silence falls back upon the house. His ears ring. Standing still, there is only his breath and his heartbeat, better than the night before but still laboring and if he shuts his eyes it feels almost like being in the club, swept in its driving rhythm. 

So he doesn't shut his eyes. Makki looks at him briefly as he exits the kitchen, before sliding his gaze back toward whatever was playing on the TV. 

Oikawa changes into a fresh pair of clothes, only to freeze at his pants. Because they _aren't_ his pants. Nicer than anything he owns. A smooth wool-blend lined with soft silk. Kind of- charming, in a way. Ushijima lives a sparse life, for an immortal. Knowing he splurges on silk-lined clothes makes him more huma- More personable. Less the immutable statue and more like an actual person. He drapes the slacks gently over his bed then slips on a pair of sweats. As an afterthought, he dabs a little cologne on the inside of his wrists. His friends don’t want to smell vampire on him and Oikawa sure as hell doesn’t want any more of their commentary. It won’t change that they _know,_ but he can remove at least this one reminder. 

That done, he wanders out to join Makki on the couch. 

"What're we watching?" 

"Just turned it on, dude. We were out- You kow. Long night." 

"Out..." 

"Looking for you? You didn't check in." Makki nudges him. "Next time you get your brains fucked out, let us know first? Iwaizumi is like a mother hen." 

Typical Hanamaki snark, but something about his tone... "Oh, I know what he's like, believe me." 

"We were all worried."

_There it is._

"Not you too, Makki!" If anyone would get it, it'd be Hanamaki. He was human, once! He knows what it's like. "I know what I'm doing." 

"Nah, that's not it. You fuck whoever you want, man, I can't stop you. I don't want to either. It's just..." He drums his fingers on the armrest. "I'm just sorry, right? It should have been you." 

"Sorry for _what?"_

Makki mutes the TV and twists to face him. "For-!" He gestures widely at himself. "For being this! I didn't want to be a werewolf, it just happened." His gestures get small again. He slumps into the couch. "It was, you know, a tragedy, or whatever. But I keep thinking, if it was you instead of me, it would have just been a happy accident." 

A hand wraps tight around his heart. "Makki..." 

"Now _you_ don't start with me. I'm just saying, I know if it'd been you, then you wouldn't be out there sleeping with _vampires."_ His lip curls, not above sneering. Oikawa is pretty sure Makki is only sneering at the concept of _anyone_ fucking a vampire and not sneering at _him,_ specifically, but it still stings. "You'd be here. Where you're _supposed_ to be." 

"It's just the one vampire," he says, petulant. Just Ushijima. Oikawa would do anything for this pack, but he only _wants_ to sleep with Ushijima

And anyway, what is there to say? Hanamaki is _right._ When Iwaizumi inherited the pack, Oikawa stopped wanting to be human. He needed to be _more._

"The change could kill me," he says on rote, Iwaizumi echoed in his words. And when did that start to matter? When did his own life start to matter? "It could have killed you!" 

"Yeah, but it didn't, and if _I_ can live through it, then you'd live through it, no problem." 

But he’s more _now,_ isn’t he? In his own way.

"Save your apologies for something that matters. Like eating my leftover desserts." A beat. "...I don't hold it against you."

"You don't?" Makki asks, and it should sound like an accusation, but it's _not,_ and that's worse. 

"Of course I-!" Ah, but that's misleading, isn't it? And he is trying to be truthful. "...Maybe I resented it, at first."

"No shit." 

Oikawa winces. "But I never resentend _you!_ I just wanted- what happened to you." Hanamaki got his own gift, got to join his best friend, and Oikawa _hated_ it.

When did the resentment stop? When did he start liking where he is? If he died in the change, he never would have met Ushijima. If he die in the change, none of this would be his problem. And if he changed, but lived- He and Ushijima still would have met. But in the forest, in a violent clash of teeth.

He never would have stepped foot downtown. Couldn't have. He would have never met Goshiki, who might just be a friend. He certainly would not have captured Ushijima's interest. As a werewolf, what reason would Ushijima have to give him this gift? What reason would he have to be in his good graces? Oikawa likes exactly where he is: Human, clever, Ushijima wrapped around his fingers and powerful in his own way. 

"And I don't resent what happened, anymore." 

"Well, thanks for the honesty." Makki knocks their shoulders together, and Oikawa knocks his shoulder back. 

They settle back into the couch and Makki unmutes the TV. It's still a little awkward, but not damningly so. By the time Iwaizumi and Matsukawa return with arms full of groceries, the pair of them are engrossed in some old sci-fi re-run, giggling at the corny practical effects. What sort of movies is Goshiki into? Maybe he could invite him over for a movie night, now that things with the pack are going to calm down. 

A stupid thought. Ushijima might know about his connection to this pack, and his people might know by extension, but the fewer who know about his personal life outside of them, the better. There is no reason for Goshiki to know. It's a nice thought, though. Maybe they can go see a movie in town. 

Oikawa gets up to take a few bags, and follows Iwaizumi and Matsukawa into the kitchen. 

"You bought a lot." 

Iwaizumi makes an acknowledging noise, and starts pulling things out of bags. Matsu gives him a flat stare. "Takahiro and I live here too. We eat more than you." 

"Yeah, but you're never _here,_ so it's going to go bad." 

No one says anything to that, so they put the groceries away in relative silence: Fresh spinach, artichokes, dried lentils and chickpeas; Iwaizumi tosses a bag of potatoes onto the basement steps; Oikawa plays tetris putting vegetables into the crisper, and stacks the old carton of eggs on top of this new one. He takes special care with the block of soft feta cheese, which only Oikawa ever eats, when he wants to feel like his omelettes aren't completely pathetic. Matsu and Makki can't stand the stuff. He supposes he wouldn't either, if he had their sense of smell, which makes it all the more obvious that despite Matsukawa's reminder, they went on this grocery run for him. When Oikawa opens the freezer to put away a box of frozen waffles (the only thing he actually sees himself eating with any regularity), he finds it loaded with meat. 

Oikawa stands there, freezer leaking cold air, and chews on his bottom lip. He does a mental tally. Spinach. Lentils. Ground beef and leg of lamb. He's half-surprised not to find a whole liver stashed in there. 

"I see a theme here," he teases as he shuts the door.

Iwaizumi scowls. "Clearly, you won't stop bleeding every damn-" 

"It's not _every-!"_

"Every damn night," he talks over him, "So you should at least put some spinach in your sad little omelettes." 

"They're _very_ good omelettes!" 

He only meant to tease Iwaizumi for his absurdly iron-rich grocery list, but He's all stuck being _touched_ instead. He thinks this might be what acceptance looks like: a bag of spinach and a freezer full of meat. It says: _I cannot stop you, so I'll help you instead._ He'll never have Iwaizumi's _approval,_ but he doesn't need that. This is enough. 

"...Gotta give me time to cook." 

Oikawa tunes back into Iwaizumi to hear that last instruction. "Yes, I will stay out of Iwa-chan's way!" 

Oikawa returns to the living room where Makki is still on the couch, movie playing so softly in the background that he almost thought it was on mute until the soundtrack swell. At some point, Hanamaki retrieved his laptop, and now he sits cross-legged with the machine in his lap. He scoots over when Oikawa sits down, but doesn't say anything, engrossed in... whatever he's working on. It can't still be the thumb drive from before, and Oikawa won't be bringing him a second one. It's not necessary anymore. Matsukawa is nowhere to be seen, but his bedroom door is shut. 

Frying aromatics filter from the kitchen, the sizzle-pop almost identical to the clicking keyboard. No one says a word. Oikawa turns up the TV. 

"Is Matsu going to come out for dinner?" 

"Depends." Hanamaki shrugs stiffly, eyes still on his computer, but his fingers stop moving across the keyboard. "He's probably asleep. Dunno if he'll wake up." 

"He went to sleep without eating?" 

"He's exhausted, dude." 

"Aren’t we all?" 

Makki cracks a smile at that, but sobers just as quickly. "He doesn't take stress as well as you." 

You, as in Oikawa Tooru, or you, as in, a human? 

Stress is a risky thing, for a werewolf. Riskier still when their green safe harbor isn't safe anymore. Of _course_ Matsu is taking stress badly, if he has nowhere to go be a wolf and work it off. Have any of them been back to the forest, since Oikawa burst in and cut their night short? Since he burst in and saved their lives?

He can't exactly tell them it's safe now - can he? _'Ushijima figured me out, but don't worry, it's fine! He gave me this gift- yes, a gift, no unwanted strings attached, I promise, no I didn't fuck him for it, I didn't even know- He promised not to hunt you anymore!'_ Like a promise from a vampire meant anything to them. It shouldn't mean anything to him, either. But he trusts Ushijima to keep his word. Where Oikawa lies like breathing, Ushijima has only ever been honest. 

"It should be safer out there now," he says vaguely. "You and Matsu should go running." 

Hanamaki looks at him incredulously, but before he can demand any details, Iwaizumi steps through the kitchen doorway and announces, "Food's ready." 

Oikawa gets up, knocks gently on Matsukawa’s door, then goes to share a meal with his friends. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That scene with Yachi swooped in as a last-minute addition, and looking back, 100% inspired by a certain scene from The Old Guard, which I can't find as an isolated clip on YT, so just go watch the movie, okay? It's so good, and nothing like this fic _but it's so good._


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the end notes for TWs, should you want them! Pretty similar fare to the rest of the fic but I like to be thorough.  
> Enjoy!

Oikawa is absent. 

Goshiki takes a nervous sip of his vodka tonic and scans the crowd, same as he's done every night since they shared a drink.

Was it something he said? They only talked for a few hours. Surely he couldn't push Oikawa away _that_ quickly. Tendou always called him a weirdo, too intense, but Oikawa runs with Ushijima so there's no reason why _intense_ would put him off. 

He scans the crowd again. No one jumps out at him. He takes another, larger swallow, and disappointment bubbles down his throat. He thought- Maybe they could be _friends,_ right? Oikawa seemed to want that. Maybe even a mentor? Oikawa called him naive, but he wants to learn. Tendou already taught him how to fight, and he's good at it. He could be good at whatever Oikawa does too. 

He leaves his drink half-finished, and steps out into the night.

Halfway to the bus stop, something grabs him by the wrist, then the waist, grip cold and perfectly familiar. 

Goshiki drops into a controlled crouch, exactly the way Tendou taught him, and uses his shift in gravity to flip Tendou through the air and flat onto his back.

Bone smacks against unforgiving concrete. Goshiki straightens, hands on his hips, grinning. "How was that?" See, Satori? I'm plenty strong! You can make me a vampire anytime! 

He grins down at Tendou laid out on the ground. 

Tendou does not look back up at him. 

"Oo," the stranger laughs like an act of violence. A shard of fear spears through Goshiki's chest. "Little mouse has teeth." The stranger lurches. Goshiki turns to run. Something cold grabs his ankle, sends him sprawling to the ground. 

The rest of his night comes in pieces, after that.

* * *

Oikawa takes his time to recover. In the past, he's just waited until the bruising went away, nevermind the stars that burst when he stood, and then he would go back out into the night, prepared to do it all again. 

Now, though, there is no vague vampire menace biting at his heels, demanding he get back out there on threat of Iwaizumi’s life. Now Iwaizumi's life, in many ways, depends on Oikawa's continued existence. Ushijima’s gift predicates on his good health. His _service._ So Oikawa resolves to recover properly. He will take his time, listen to his body. Eat his meat and leafy greens. 

He just failed to consider how _restless_ recovery would make him. 

With nothing else to do, he finds his way back to that corner store. He wants to say thank you, properly, and maybe show the girl he is doing well. Sunlight turns their dingy storefront warm and welcoming, the quarter newsstand charming instead of outdated. Or maybe it is just as dingy as before, but he knows the girl inside, now, and she is good, she is kind, and endears him to the store. 

Despite daylight hours, the store is still empty, which is just as well because Yachi cries when he hands over his box of store-bought cupcakes. They exchange numbers. They text. She asks around his injuries, never _direct,_ but it’s refreshing. Makki and Matsu certainly don’t mince words. Yachi is polite. 

Texting is nice, but it does little for his restlessness. It plagues him every moment, but nights are the worst. He wanders the house without purpose, and braces the late fall chill to sit on their porch. He sleeps at odd hours. 

He has the dream again. 

It must be the same dream, because he wakes hard and gasping just like before. His eyes dart in the dark like he expects to find something- find some _one-_

Of course, there is nothing. 

He sits up, heart pounding. Still groggy, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. It comes away slick, black in the darkness and thicker than spit. His tongue tastes like copper. His mouth, full of blood. 

Oikawa wakes up. 

For _real_ this time, and he still wakes up hard. His heart pounds against his ribcage, anticipation-fear-want-shame adrenaline sparking in his blood, demanding that he open his eyes, be aware, be _ready._ But when he opens them, his room is dim, not the pitch darkness of _Ushijima’s_ room, not _Ushijima’s_ bed, not like in that goddamn _dream._

His mouth still tastes like copper. At some point he bit his lip while he slept, hard enough to _bleed._ Maybe that’s why he woke up still hard and not sticky with cum. He feels close, but it’s the blood in his mouth, lips stinging, that finally guides his hand down to his cock.

Only half-aware, Oikawa squeezes himself through his sweats. He is so groggy and his limbs so heavy that the touch registers as foreign, someone else’s hand. He bites back a whimper, and throws his other arm across his mouth. 

When he shuts his eyes, his mind takes it as an invitation. He does not need to turn back and wade through the twilight depths of his subconscious. The tide rises up to meet him. Each image a desperate mirage, each with the same themes as before: _Fangs- choking- hands-_

He groans, the noise muffled behind his forearm but damning to his ears. He grinds his palm down, hips twitching to meet it of their own accord, but it’s not _enough._

Delirious, he rucks down his sweats, clumsy in his rush but for once not clumsy with venom. He remembers it anyway: Muscles lax, body hot and unresponsive, wanton and helpless. He wraps his hand around the base of his cock just for the pressure. 

Another groan, louder this time. At some point his free hand drifted from his mouth to his neck, fingers digging hard into bruise. Pain sparks down his spine, yanks out a whimper- 

He drags his hand from base to tip and that whimper morphs into an unrestrained moan. He slicks his palm with pre-cum. There’s lube in his drawer, but the burn is so good, so much like the burn of Ushijima’s fingers opening him up, barely-slick with his cum; the thought of making his hand go smoother is absolutely laughable when he could have _that._

Hand on his cock, Oikawa turns back into the dream. He sees himself on his knees and nearly laughs. Of _course_ he is on his knees. He has only said it a hundred times. He said it while Ushijima fucked him in the office, floor glittering with glass- begged, almost. Again in the parking garage, the ground rough and winter-cold. He imagined it in Ushijima’s home, at his desk. And he sees himself there now, in his mind’s eye, between Ushijima’s thighs, city lights at his back. 

Oikawa likes giving head. It might put him on his knees, but it puts him in _control._ He decides when to lick and when to hollow his cheeks, when to use suction and when to sink down until he chokes. 

When they fucked, Ushijima got him off with precision; he was a goddamn picture of control. Ushijima drank, and drank, and drank, and drank, and if their positions were reversed, Oikawa thinks he would have lost himself utterly and swallowed Ushijima dry. He would have jumped willingly off the edge into abandon, consequences be damned. 

Ushijima - despite all that blood and violence and pleasure-pain - was so fucking _careful._ In _control._

Oikawa thinks he would like to see it break. 

So what would it be like, to suck off a vampire?

Foreign. Cold on his tongue, thighs cool against overhot skin. 

He whimpers, drags his palm over his head for more slick, and picks up his pace, relishes the burn. Ushijima would be cold in his mouth and the rest of him would burn hotter for the contrast. And when Ushijima’s control finally broke- 

He’d fist his hair, hold his head in place and fuck his mouth, reckless, _wrecking._

Oikawa’s free hand stops digging into his neck and finds his mouth instead. He jabs two fingers inside, scratches the back of his throat, gags- 

_Yes._ The imagined fist holds him steady. 

Oikawa likes giving head because it puts him in control but Ushijima would wrench it back without even trying and that’s _better,_ that’s so much better. 

_(He twists his fist on the down stroke, arches up into nothing.)_

He wouldn’t have to think. He’d gag and Ushijima would keep going.

_(He squeezes himself at the base until it hurts.)_

Ushijima would choke him and fuck his throat breathless, until he cried, like he's crying now. 

_(Oikawa shoves his fingers back until he chokes again.)_

Ushijima would _use_ him. 

_(Oikawa arches off his bed and comes.)_

He sinks back into bed, mind momentarily, blissfully blank. Discomfort drags him back. Sweat stings the back of his neck, shame on its heels. He drags a hand down his face, wet with spit, but at least it's not his _other_ hand. He rolls onto his side and reaches for a tissue, wipes himself up best he can and tosses it into the wastebin. 

Skin buzzing with nauseating afterglow, Oikawa sits up and swings his legs to the floor. He avoids looking into the vanity set above his dresser, afraid of what he’ll find. Afraid he’ll only find himself looking back. That dream can’t be his fault; no one controls the shit their unconscious mind churns out. He wouldn’t _choose_ to dream himself choking with blood in his mouth- 

He just chose to get off on it. God, this sitting around is no good for him. 

_(Bullshit,_ claim a quiet, shameless part of him. _That dream was no product of a bored mind. It’s been there since Ushijima stuck his teeth in you.)_

Oikawa heads to the bathroom. He avoids that mirror, too.

By the time Oikawa finishes showering for the day, Iwaizumi has arrived; he, Matsukawa, and Hanamaki sit around the kitchen table, the map rolled out in front of them, a scattering of highlighter and permanent markers holding it in place. He should probably go in and adjust Nekoma's territory with stripes of purple, since Ushijima and his people are hunting there now- but he barely understands the situation, and human as he is, probably never will. Before courting Ushijima, none of them knew vampires maintained distinct feeding grounds. From the outside, the entire city spelled danger. 

Oikawa drapes his towel over his shoulders and opens the fridge, removing some of last night's leftovers. When he turns to grab silverware, he realizes Iwaizumi is not looking at the map, but watching him, a hint of approval in his gaze. 

He settles at the head of the table to a chorus of distracted _heys,_ plate balanced on his knee. As he eats, he takes in the rest of the map. No real changes, far as he can see - except, no, wait, is that a food stain in the forest, or- 

No, someone has carved that section out deliberately. It sits on the far edge, furthest from the den and nearest the highway leading out of town, so small he really might have mistaken it for a blemish on the page, if not for the deliberate way it runs parallel to the treeline. 

Is that Daichi's pack? Are the outsiders staying? 

Did Iwaizumi _give_ them that territory? 

Oikawa grips the table. "Since when-" he starts, but doesn't know how to finish his question in a way that wouldn't make Iwaizumi jump down his throat. Since when do we help strays? Since when do we give something for nothing? Since when does this sort of thing happen and leave me in the dust? _Since when?_

"What was that?" Iwaizumi sets down his marker to look at him expectantly, earnestly, oblivious to the venom pooling in Oikawa's mouth, burning his tongue, _since when._

"Never mind." Oikawa digs back into his breakfast. 

Iwaizumi frowns. "Are you-" 

"Just tired." It is not exactly a lie. He is tired. That dream- 

Hanamaki snickers. "Didn't sleep much, huh? Have any nice dreams?" 

Oikawa's face flames. "It _wasn't_ a nice dream." 

"Sure smelled that way-"

_"Drop it."_

How the fuck does he explain that the same dream which left his body on fire and wanting also left him panting and panicked? That the taste of blood in his mouth terrified and pulled him in? They don't know vampires the way he knows them, the nauseating pleasure of being held down and taken to the edge- 

They don't, but Goshiki does. Maybe they can catch that movie after all. He needs to talk to _someone,_ and Goshiki understands. Oikawa might be some aberrant freak of mortals but Goshiki is too. They're a cabal of two. 

Oikawa finishes his food, feeling better with a plan and better with the reminder that he is not really alone. He gets up and dumps his dish in the sink, then turns on the faucet and leaves it running while he reaches into his pocket for his phone. He shoots off a text to Goshiki, changes his mind, and dials him instead. 

It rings for several moments. Oikawa leans against the counter. 

“Inarizaki answering service!” Says a familiar voice. “How can I direct yer call?” 

Every ounce of blood drains from his face. 

Iwaizumi jerks upright, attention locked to him. Maybe he smells sweat. Maybe Oikawa looks as wan as he feels. Shaking, he holds up his tand, quietly begs Iwaizumi to _stay._

The phone creaks against his ear, grip tight and clammy. Mind blank, he says, “Atsumu.” 

“Oikawa!” Atsumu drawls, “Been a while. Little late to check up on yer _friend,_ ain’t it?” He says friend like a mockery, and Oikawa figures he earned that tone; he’d forgotten, among everything, what he’d done.

Oikawa opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. The faucet runs in his ears. Below it- 

Labored breath, tiny- tiny sobs, he thinks, or whimpers, or- 

Does it matter? It’s Goshiki, alive. 

“Great timing!" 

“What do you want?” 

“Ain’t it obvious? I’m sending a _message._ Was gonna have Goshiki here deliver it, but he’s a little _out of commission._ My bad.” 

Feeling outside himself, Oikawa clings to the one actionable piece of information he can find. “What message?” 

“Not gonna ask who the message is for?”

He assumed- _Ushijima,_ but why would Atsumu know-

Atsumu laughs exactly like a fox chirping with a rabbit in its mouth. “When ya told me Tendou had his eye on this Goshiki kid, you didn’t mention you have _Ushijima_ in yer pocket.”

“He’s not-” 

“Shut yer fucking trap.”

Oikawa obediently shuts his mouth.

“Dunno what ya did to earn this kid’s loyalty, by the way, but he _really_ didn’t want to talk. Didn’t even change his tune when I told him who gave me his name. Not that he knew shit anyway. Waste of my fucking time. What I can’t figure out - what this kid don’t know _shit_ about - is why you had me drop you off in _werewolf country._ What’s so important ya traded your friend here for it, huh?”

“What’s the message?” he asks again. Clings to it. He is so close to helpless, to _dead,_ but if he has to deliver a message then Atsumu won’t kill him- won’t kill Goshiki- 

“You tell Ushijima to stay the _fuck_ off our docks.” 

The docks. A brief flash: Tendou, poised above him, Ushijima somewhere to his side. Tendou, mouth bloodied, hand a mess, saying, _Did you know Inarizaki hunts the docks?_ He was only there because Ushijima forbade the forest. They were only there because of _him._

Something rustles in the background, whimpers. Goshiki, hurt, because of _him._

But if not for that night in the forest, if not for Atsumu Miya taking him there, Ushijima would have torn out Iwaizumi’s throat. 

“I’ll tell him. If you don’t kill Goshiki.” 

Atsumu barks. It can hardly be called a laugh. It is so _inhuman._ “I think if I kill both of ya, that will send a nice message too, don’t ya think? We don’t want any _new_ vampires snapping up our hunting grounds. Ushijima will figure out the why. I’ll make it _real_ clear.” 

But _can’t_ die, if he dies they’ll hunt Aoba Johsai again, he _can’t-_

“But the boss says we don’t want a war. Bad for the flock. We don’t wanna scare ‘em off. So I’ll make you a trade.”

“Name it.” 

Atsumu whistles. “I’ll drop off this little one the last place I saw ya, and you can tell me what’s so damn special out there. Sound good?” He does not wait for an answer. There is no other possible answer he could give than _yes, anything, don't kill him._

“See ya soon, Tooru.” 

The line goes dead. For a moment Oikawa stands still, dial tone droning in his ear. 

Iwaizumi gets to his feet. 

Oikawa pushes off the counter, turns, tilts, and vomits into the sink.

By the time he's aware of himself again, Iwaizumi has his hand on his back, rubbing slow circles while he finishes emptying the last of his breakfast and bile. He lets himself slump sideways into Iwaizumi, strong and warm. Comfort he doesn't deserve. Oikawa straightens, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. 

"I need help." 

He does not want to risk anyone else, but the way Atsumu _talked-_

He means harm. If Oikawa goes alone, he'll die. Then Goshiki will die. Then the pack will die, because Ushijima already said he would not honor his memory. He'd take out Atsumu and then Inarizaki would retaliate and the whole damn city would go up in flames and- 

And he's getting ahead of himself, imagining catastrophe after catastrophe. But the fact remains: He does not want help, but he needs it. 

"Anything," Iwaizumi says immediately. "I'm at your back." 

"He's been itching to help you since-" Hanamaki's light tone falls flat. He recalibrates. "What was that phone call, anyway?" 

Oikawa shakes his head. He spits into the sink one last time, but his mouth is still sour. "I'll explain on the way." 

And he does. 

Panic turns his thoughts sharp and ragged, but he talks anyway. He needs them. They deserve to know. 

He tells them about the work he's done for Ushijima. Matsukawa, in the passenger's seat with his phone in his lap, comments that he figured as much. Iwaizumi keeps his eyes on the road, mouth set thin with resolve. 

He explains how that work brought him to Miya Atsumu. 

Haltingly, he details the night he met up with them in the forest - how he got there, what he saved them from. What he traded. 

It all sounds so reasonable out loud. One life for many lives. One life - a boy he hardly knew, a boy who'd already thrown his lot in with vampires, a boy who surely knew the risks - for many lives, lives he knew, lives that _mattered._

In the back of his mind, Iwaizumi shouts: _We don't sacrifice our own. We aren't vampires._

Iwaizumi isn't. But Oikawa would make the trade again. Just like he would come to Goshiki's rescue again. He would do it all again, and again. For his people. For himself.

The ride is very quiet, after that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *throws in yet another POV, for flavor*
> 
> TW: Implied/Referenced torture


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy this extra long chapter! Thank you a million to my beta Andy for helping this massive chapter flow smoothly.

Figures streak against the tree line, five spots of darkness interrupting pure midnight blue. Oikawa throws off his seatbelt and strains forward. _Five_ figures. He expected only one.

Iwaizumi cuts the headlights and keeps driving. 

"What is going on?" Oikawa hisses to himself. 

"Reinforcements," says Matsukawa, holding up his cell phone as if that explained the scene. It does. That map and its lone strip of orange, the Outsiders' new territory slivered off from Aoba Johsai. It's not far from here. 

But he counts four vampires to one massive wolf, coat impossible to distinguish in this light. _Reinforcements!_ He nearly laughs. _Just one? That's just another casualty._

But it fights like it intends to win. The wolf leaps sideways; in the same second a vampire lands after him, too quick to really see until its fist slams into the frozen ground. Even at this distance Oikawa swears he feels the impact shudder through the earth.

Iwaizumi takes his foot off the gas. They coast to a quiet stop. 

The wolf is enormous and agile for its size, but one of the vampires launches toward it. The wolf doesn't dodge. The vampire leaps- 

And launches off the werewolves back, tackling the nearest other vampire to the ground, out of sight. 

That same vampire lifts its head in victory and howls. 

It is no vampire at all. 

Fear shudders down Oikawa’s spine. It is a werewolf held between transformations: bipedal, with a wolf's claws, a wolf’s powerful jaw, and the mobility of a human. A form meant for war. 

But to hold oneself in that state is all the agony of breaking bones, without allowing them to heal and settle as they wish. It is a transformation left intentionally incomplete. To hold it takes practice, concentration, grit, a tolerance for pain. Karasuno is no joke, using a form like that, and for what? This isn't even their fight. 

A pained snarl breaks the car's terrible silence. Oikawa tears his gaze back to the car, to Iwaizumi in the driver's seat; Iwaizumi, panting, hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel except they are not hands at all, really. His joints have swollen; claws broke through skin, fingers bloody. 

"Let's move," he rasps, and Oikawa barely recognizes his voice. The voice he would know anywhere. The one he'd know in any form and in any light. But _this-_

 _"Hajime,"_ Oikawa breathes, caught somewhere between agony and awe. Iwaizumi doesn't look at him. He throws open the car door without waiting for him to finish. And what else is there to say? Nothing could express this feeling in his chest. _Thank you, I'm sorry, don't get hurt._ All of it, inadequate. 

Matsukawa and Hanamaki follow, though they shed their clothes and drop to the ground to take their transformation proper. He cannot tune out their chorus of breaking bones. 

This close, Oikawa can almost make out features. Gold and silver; Atsumu and his mirror, flanking the enormous black wolf like two halves of a single terror. The third vampire gets to its feet from where the second werewolf knocked him down. For a moment it stands utterly still, head angled toward the wind. Its eyes catch the moon, a pair of cold-blooded slits.

Its head swings left with pure economy of motion, a clean jerk like a coiled snake unleashing. Those eyes lock onto them. The vampire drops low, back into the grass. 

Iwaizumi does not spare him a glance. "Find your friend. Asahi has him in the ditch." And then he takes off into the fray, flanked by his people. 

Oikawa slides down into the ditch and does not look back.

The sounds of fighting grow quiet as he runs. Among the reeds, Asahi is nothing but a dark blip. Naked, so he must have fought at some point, but he holds Goshiki's head in his lap with such care. Relief brings Oikawa to his knees.

"It's you," Asahi greets, surprised. "The..." 

"The human?" 

Asahi shakes his head, but doesn't amend his greeting. 

Oikawa reaches for Goshiki's wrist, for his pulse. 

Asahi flinches backward.

"He’s stable.” 

Oikawa narrows his eyes. "What's wrong?" 

"Nothing!" 

"Then let me touch him.” 

He tries again. This time Asahi pulls Goshiki back, a protective arm laid across his bandaged chest. 

“What’s your _problem?”_

“I don’t-” 

Something in his face stops Asahi in his tracks. He sighs, stroking a hand through Goshiki’s hair. It sticks in places, matted with blood. "...All I know is he's been attacked by vampires, and you're... involved with... You know the one that attacked Hinata." 

"How do you think I know _him?"_ Oikawa snaps, pointing at Goshiki.

Asahi's hand stills in Goshiki's hair. “He’s-?” 

“A spy? No. He’s just a friend I met through- Well do _you_ have any friends outside this?” He gestures between them, then up, toward the fighting. "Because I don't.” Not anymore.

That cows Asahi into silence. Oikawa reaches again, and this time Asahi does not flinch away. When he touches Goshiki’s wrist, it’s warm. 

But he cannot find the pulse. 

“You call this _stable?”_

Asahi takes his hand, guides it to Goshiki’s neck and tucks his fingers below his ear. Beneath them, Goshiki's pulse emerges like a timid thing, rabbit-quick, whisper-quiet. "This isn't stable!”

"It will bounce back soon-" 

"He's not a werewolf!" Oikawa fights not to raise his voice. Asahi appears no stranger to serious injury, covered in scars, but he is a born werewolf, and unlike Iwaizumi, has no human tagging along with his pack. "He's human, he's just a _kid-"_

Werewolves bounce back. Humans are fragile.

Asahi leaps to his feet, Goshiki in his arms. For a split moment Oikawa thinks Asahi means to shout at him - _He’s just a kid and you put him in danger, this is your fault, you did this!_ But Asahi doesn’t know that. Guilt eats him anyway.

Then a cold hand digs into his shoulder, and Oikawa's stomach drops. "Well.” Oikawa turns, utterly cool and entirely outside himself, like speaking through glass. "It took you a while." 

Atsumu grins down at him. 

Iwaizumi decks him in the face. 

They roll into the dirt. Atsumu laughs, a chittering fox delighting in violence. Iwaizumi's form ripples, and in that moment of weakness, Atsumu gets his fangs into his arm. 

"Hajime!" 

Just as quickly, Iwaizumi knees Atsumu in the stomach. He wrenches sideways but his teeth stay in. They rip from elbow to wrist and dislodge. Blood steams in the air.

Atsumu struggles to his feet. His left arm hangs limp, shoulder an inch lower than the right, popped from its socket. He advances back toward Iwaizumi. “Alright, I’ll take care of ya first.” 

Oikawa lunges, rams his full body into Atsumu's chest and sends them sprawling. Triumph thrills through him. It thrills through him even as Atsumu stops their rolling, even as he slams his back into the ground and knocks the air from his lungs. Atsumu settles on top of him, and for a moment Oikawa is back in the lounge, in his element. 

Then Atsumu opens his mouth. Blood drips down his chin, viscous and black, cold when it hits his face. 

"Heya, little vampire." Atsumu's good hand takes him by the throat and squeezes. _This is it,_ Oikawa thinks coolly, even as panic grips the rest of him. He sucks in a breath that doesn't come. He gurgles. He flails, bucks his hips like that might unbalance the weight above him but Atsumu is _heavy,_ murder in his eyes. Oikawa squeezes his eyes shut. 

At once the weight leaves him. Oikawa flings his eyes open. 

_Asahi_ has Atsumu on the ground an inch away. Oikawa scrambles to his hands and knees, drags himself over then bears his weight down on Atsumu's dislocated shoulder. His pained scream arcs above the fighting. Asahi snarls; his eyes are wild, his face twisted into half a wolf. It does not look intentional the way Iwaizumi's form is. Half a step from vicious madness. That's _fine._ There's strength in madness. Brutality. If Oikawa could, he'd let himself become a wild thing just to tear Atsumu apart. It's better than he deserves. 

Over his shoulder, Iwaizumi snarls, _"Leave."_

In the corner of his awareness, he catches sight of Iwaizumi struggling to his feet, shoulders heaving, eyes unfocused, but doing a damn good job pretending otherwise. 

"Like hell," Atsumu snarls back. 

A victorious howl interrupts Atsumu's next words. Oikawa grins down at Atsumu. Blood falls from his nose and onto Atsumu's face, but he barely feels the wound. Pride swells in his gut. "This is what was so important. _My people."_

Atsumu gurgles. He thinks it is supposed to be laughter. "Little vampire bedding with the wolves?" 

"I said _leave."_ Iwaizumi cuts in. "You lost this fight. Leave or I'll give the order to end all of you." 

Another snarl, this one directed inward, tinged with shame. Oikawa could swallow it whole. It feels so _good._ He can barely feel his body. 

"Fine," Atsumu snarls at length. "I got my answers." 

Together, Asahi and Iwaizumi haul Atsumu to his feet, yanking him by his bad arm. “Ow, _fuck-”_

Iwaizumi kicks the back of Atsumu’s knee. He crumbles with a muffled shout, leg sprawled, broken. Kinder than he deserves. 

“So you don’t get any ideas,” Iwaizumi growls. They drag him from the ditch, and as a group they reconvene with the rest of their party. The other two vampires are each pinned beneath massive paws; Matsukawa and Hanamaki have one, the unfamiliar wolf, another. 

“”Samu!” That one shouts as they come into view. He is Atsumu’s spitting image, same dead eyes, same cut jaw, this one bloodied but in better shape than his twin. Oikawa almost feels a pang of guilt. He’d never known vampires to maintain their human family after death. 

“Everyone shut the fuck up.” 

Iwaizumi shoves Atsumu back onto his knees. 

“Get the fuck off our land. _Stay_ the fuck off our land. We are two packs strong. That is a fucking threat.” 

“Like I said,” Atsumu pants through pain, but he’s grinning, “I got what I came for.” 

Iwaizumi breaks his other leg.

“Don’t be fucking cocky.” 

“You got it,” the third vampire cuts in, before Atsumu can dig himself deeper. 

The Karasuno werewolf eases himself off Atsumu’s twin. 

He stays on his knees. “I’m gonna pick up Atsumu, since he got his legs broken.” 

“‘Samu,” Atsumu whines, but when Osamu bends to take Atsumu on his back, he wraps his arms around the other’s neck without complaint. 

Together, Aoba Johsai and Karasuno watch the Inarizaki vampires retreat. None of them breathe until they disappear over the horizon. It is a long walk back to town, longer still with broken bodies. Oikawa feels some satisfaction, at that. 

Someone turned on Iwaizumi’s headlights; they cast long shadows across the dry dirt. Iwaizumi, though, is covered in mud. Earth made wet with blood. It caked to his right side, where Atsumu tore through him. "Iwa-" 

"How is he?" 

Goshiki is... His pulse is faint, breath shallow, color fading as his warmth seeps into the night, he might- he might _die._ He might die and it will be his fault. Goshiki was supposed to become a vampire. He is supposed to live forever. 

"Breathe." 

Every inch of him aches with tension, chest heaving. 

"You're okay." 

"But Iwa-chan-" 

Arms wrap around him. They lean into each other and he cannot tell who holds whose weight. Wet warmth seeps into his back, soaks his shirt with blood. "Are you-" 

"Shut up," Iwaizumi says weakly, wearmly, "I'm fine. Oikawa, you fought off a _vampire."_

Oikawa laughs, for once with a mania not brought on by Ushijima and blood loss. "He was going to hurt you." 

And that is the crux of everything. He will never let harm come to Iwaizumi.

“And how is your friend?” 

Like that he wrenches his head backward, gaze darting through the streams of headlight until it lands on Goshiki, still in Asahi's arms. 

“He's alive." But his skin is so _cold,_ his pulse so faint- "For now. God, Hajime, he's so faint, I can't let him-" If he dies now, after all this, "What if, Hajime, what if you-" 

"Don't ask me to do that.” Iwaizumi’s arms tighten around him like a comfort, like a vice. “Please." 

Impossibly, Iwaizumi leans more of his weight onto him, but his voice betrays the depths of his exhaustion: Weary, familiar, an old argument re-tread. 

But it's different now, isn't it? He's not asking for himself this time, and Goshiki is nearly out of options. Like Hanamaki. Iwaizumi had no problem making _him_ a werewolf. Why is it only when _he_ asks- 

"Well why not?"

"Tooru..." 

"Don't _Tooru_ me!" Oikawa wrenches himself away fully this time. Iwaizumi sways. Wind cools the blood soaked into his back. A pang of guilt juts through his chest, but overwhelmed immediately by an old and well-worn anger. 

"It could kill him." 

"But look at him," Oikawa juts his arm toward Goshiki limp in Asahi's arms. The headlights turn his gesture long, this side of unnatural. None of this feels real, and yet all of it is familiar. "He's going to die."

"You don't know that. And I don't know _him._ ”

"So? You don't know Karasuno and you gave them your land."

"I need to know his temperament. If the change doesn't kill him, he could go mad. If he can't control himself, he could hurt people." 

"His temperament?” He laughs, or maybe cries; it is so hard to tell, lately, “Your excuses are as crap as they've always been. He's a good kid. He was supposed to-" Oikawa chokes. _He was supposed to become a vampire._ "He has the self-control. Please. He doesn't deserve..." _What I put him through._ Any of this. He deserves to live forever.

Iwaizumi says nothing. The car idles quietly. No one meets his eye. 

"Fine," he spits, and whirls to face Daichi next. 

Before he can even speak, Daichi holds up his hands. He spent the whole fight between forms, but he stands steady on his feet now, knuckles bloody but no worse for wear. He looks apologetic, like he just stepped on someone's toe; not like he's damning someone to death with every second wasted. "He'd be worse off with us. We can barely support..." For a moment he sounds so much like Iwaizumi, weighing his words. "We aren't stable. He'll be a target."

_But he already was._

A third stranger - the wolf he saw earlier, he thinks - steps forward. He looks a lot like Daichi; black hair, same height, maybe a little slimmer. Most of all: The same bearing, like a leader. "He'll live." The stranger speaks slowly, calmly. Oikawa almost believes him. 

"How do you know? Asahi there thinks his pulse is fine and it's _not._ None of you know anything about humans!" _None of you remember._

"I used to be human. Most of us used to be." 

Asahi and Daichi both have the look of born wolves, but Hinata certainly didn't, and the man in front of him does not quite carry himself like the apex of a food chain. He carries himself with a certain softness. He wants so badly to believe him. 

What other choice is there? No one will make Goshiki a werewolf, not even to save his life, so he has to save his own life. Survive, as a human. A human should treat him, then. Oikawa knows what he has to do. 

“Fine. Thanks for your help.” He barely keeps the venom from his voice. Though Karasuno owes them more than this, for what Iwaizumi gave to them. Their territory has shrunk enough without carving pieces off for every stray who comes around. He looks to Iwaizumi expectantly. He's the pack leader, and should have a final word, but Iwaizumi only sways on his feet, still sluggishly dripping blood. Someone's tied a piece of cloth around his forearm. He needs to get patched up, too. "Let's just go."

* * *

Yachi said she’d be waiting for him, but when steps into the drugstore she’s nowhere to be found; in her place is a tall, dark-haired woman wearing a pristine white lab coat. Oikawa pulls Hanamaki’s coat closer around him. It hides at least some of the blood. 

“Can I help you?” 

He approaches the counter, each step measured by the woman’s cool gray gaze. 

“I’m a friend of Yachi’s,” he says, trying to sound chipper and failing miserably. 

As if summoned, Yachi pokes her head out from a door behind the counter and smiles at him. "It's good to see-” Almost instantly, her smile slips into open concern. “Oh, oh gosh, maybe it isn't good- I mean it is good to see you, but-" She hurries around the counter and touches his arm, "It's good to see you, but you're hurt, and that's _not_ good!"

Oikawa looks down at himself, then chuckles. "No it's, ah, it's not my blood, I'm okay." Only when the pharmacist steps around the corner to join them does he remember that being covered in someone _else's_ blood is actually a greater cause for concern. He amends, "It's my friend. He's hurt."

"There are three distinct blood types on your body," the woman interjects. Oikawa finally catches her name tag: Kiyoko. "Are they all your friend?"

"How-" Oikawa's eyes narrow. "Ah."

"Don't be scared!" Now it is Yachi's turn to soothe. "She's, ah. Kiyoko?"

"I'm her partner."

"You're a vampire," Oikawa says slowly, almost but not quite a question. What else could she be? Yachi's depth of first-aid makes just that much more sense.

Kiyoko shrugs, the gesture speaking to inhuman poise. Her grace betrays her nature. But Oikawa has not yet learned to truly fear vampires, and he trusts Yachi; he'll trust Kiyoko too. Goshiki doesn't have the luxury of mistrust.

"I promise to explain later, but can we please bring in my friend?"

Together, he and Iwaizumi carry Goshiki inside through a back door, which leads to a storage-closet made break room made office. A set of televisions occupy one corner, each showing feed from a different security camera. On one he spots Matsukawa and Hanamaki stretching themselves out on the warm hood of Iwaizumi's car. On another: Kiyoko, eyeing a door like she might make it invisible by force of will.

They lay Goshiki on what looks like a comfortable, well-loved couch, and then Yachi begins the slow process of unwrapping his bandages. Up close, it’s obvious the work Atsumu did was haphazard at best; inexperienced and unconcerned. Oikawa tries not to picture Atsumu manipulating Goshiki’s limp body like a thing, pulling this way and that to get the gauze in place. Yachi has a gentle hand, and doesn’t flinch even as the true extent of damage to Goshiki’s body slowly comes to light.

''I'm going to..." Iwaizumi sways from one foot to the other.

Yachi gives him a small smile. "It is sort of crowded in here. Maybe you should wait outside?" 

Iwaizumi gives her a grateful look, squeezes Oikawa's shoulder, and leaves. 

"I'm not leaving." 

"I know.” She laughs lightly. It’s clearly forced, but he appreciates the attempt anyway. “He just looked like he needed an excuse to sit this out." 

“This is all a bit much for him.” There’s nothing worse than facing the fact that there are people outside his reach. People he cannot protect. Oikawa learned a long time ago that if he doesn’t want to break, he has to limit his care. Pick a few people and fuck all the rest. “Isn’t it a lot for you? I’m sorry I- I’m taking advantage again.”

Yachi shakes her head. “Kiyoko and I like to do what we can.” 

The last of Goshiki’s bandages fall away. From there, Yachi seems to conduct a sort of assessment. She pinches his palm until the skin around her fingers turns ghostly white, then releases and counts beneath her breath as color seeps back into his hand. Next she pulls back an eyelid and shines her cell phone's flashlight in his eye; the iris is blown wide. Yachi makes a soft noise. Oikawa's stomach twists over itself.

"He's lost blood, but I think... You see all his wounds?" How could he not? "I think he's in shock. All his injuries are superficial. It's they were just... meant to hurt." 

There's nothing left in Oikawa's stomach, but it roils anyway. Bile burns his throat. Atsumu drawls in his ear, _Dunno what ya did to earn this kid’s loyalty, by the way, but he really didn’t want to talk._

He didn't do anything to earn Goshiki's loyalty. He certainly isn't worthy of it, after what he did. 

_Didn’t even change his tune when I told him who gave me his name._

How much does Goshiki know?

This time his stomach does not roil so much as it drops away entirely.

"How long until he wakes up?" he asks softly, still mentally reeling. This is- bad. Objectively, what happened to Goshiki is worse, but infinitely more disastrous for him and the fragile gift Ushijima bestowed upon him. If Atsumu told Goshiki his betrayal, and Goshiki told Tendou...

Maybe Ushijima's off-limits rule would hold. But Tendou will tell Ushijima, and Oikawa has faced Ushijima in the face of betrayal before. This time, it won't just be his hand. _I gave you what you deserved._ Whatever Goshiki got, he deserves worse. If it was at Ushijima’s hand, he might not even mind.

"I can’t say when he’ll wake up… He needs time to heal. He’s stable, but he lost a lot of blood. He really needs a transfusion, but I can't do that here."

So either he takes his chances on Tendou, and waits for Goshiki to wake on his own, or takes his chances at the hospital, and get Goshiki some medical attention beyond the triage care Yachi could provide? 

The fewer people who know about this night, the safer, but he needs to know what Goshiki knows, and for that he needs to be awake, coherent. 

How can Oikawa run damage control if he doesn't know what he's fixing?

"He also got a large dose of venom recently. I think... All things considered, that's probably a good thing? Helps with the pain."

He can't imagine Atsumu bit Goshiki out of mercy. Certainly not if the rest of his injuries implied- He can't even think the word. _Coward._ But maybe Atsumu had to subdue Goshiki for transport. Maybe that means Goshiki put up a fight. He’ll take comfort in that. He’ll take comfort anywhere he can get it. 

Finally, Oikawa nods, more to himself than for Yachi’s benefit. 

“Thank you for all your help. I know you didn’t sign up for any of this-” 

“I did! I meant it when I said I would help you. Are you, are you sure this is all you need? Whatever it is, Kiyoko and I-”

“I’ll be okay.” 

Yachi wrings her hands, but her expression remains self-assured and determined. “Okay and good aren’t the same thing. Whatever- Whoever did this… Not all vampires are selfish monsters. I just, uhm, I want you to know that.” 

With that, they say their awkward, grateful goodbyes. He and Iwaizumi carry Goshiki back out to the car and gently lay him in the back. Hanamaki and Matsukawa offer to take a bus back home so Goshiki can take the back seat, but Iwaizumi remains glued to his side.

“He needs a hospital,” Oikawa says, gently pushing the car door shut. 

Iwaizumi glances at the corner store. “Could she not…?” 

“He needs a transfusion.” 

“Oh.” 

Oikawa leans heavy on the car door and lets the cold night seep into his senses. Adrenaline burnt off, he’s suddenly exhausted. Iwaizumi does the same, still swaying on his feet; he caught his own dose of venom, and he has no idea what that shit does to a werewolf. 

“I wanted to avoid this,” Oikawa sighs.

“The hospital?” 

He grimaces. “Cops.” 

Aoba Johsai does their best to avoid cops and cops do their best to avoid them. But this isn’t a pack matter, and he doubts they’ll turn a blind eye. 

Steeling himself, Oikawa pushes off the car, but Iwaizumi blocks his path.

"I won't ask if you're in danger." 

"No more than usual,” he says lightly, like a reflex.

"I'm so sick of that answer." 

_Good,_ he thinks, still sore from their argument over Goshiki's fate. It worked out- but what if it hadn't? He moves to walk around the car, but Iwaizumi grabs him by the forearm, meets his eye and refuses to let go. 

"But I'm sure as hell asking if you're next." 

"If I’m-”

"Are you next? Are you a target?" 

"Oh, is that- Iwa-chan, you had me worried it was serious!" 

"Was I serious- Oikawa, we fought vampires! Three of them, in our territory. They were there for _you!_ I'm serious. This is fucking _serious."_

Beneath all that shouting, his voice trembles. 

It is impossible to forget that Iwaizumi is a leader. The role keeps him at a distance. It drove a wedge between them that's only grown more fraught with time. 

But it is easy to forget why Iwaizumi took the role: Duty is built into the core of him. Into the both of them. Duty binds their friendship together. How would Oikawa feel, with their positions reversed? Of course Iwaizumi is scared for him. Of course he is terrified. Oikawa knows the terror of fearing for his best friend's life firsthand. What a marvel Iwaizumi held himself together at all. 

Oikawa sets a hand atop the one around his forearm. Gently, he uncurls each finger until he cups Iwaizumi's open hand between his own. "I'll be okay." It sounds like such an empty promise, but he means it. Atsumu held onto that information until given a reason to act. That is a good sign, even if it does not feel like it. 

Iwaizumi's expression says he heard only the empty promise. 

So, Oikawa explains. "Atsumu said they want to avoid a war. Killing me would start one." 

"And that doesn't?" Iwaizumi nods toward Goshiki, tucked into the passenger seat and still deeply unconscious.

"This was just a message." 

"You get how that's worse, right?" 

He sees where Iwaizumi is coming from, but a little pain is temporary. Vampires are immortal. They do not care about the temporary, only the end result, and the end result is Goshiki, alive. 

Any response would be inadequate, so Oikawa merely shrugs. 

“Okay. Whatever.” Iwaizumi looks like he wants to say more. He looks like he wants to punch something, but he also looks exhausted. Bags shadow his eyes, worn thin. “This conversation isn’t over, for the record. But… Hospital. It can wait. Let’s take care of your friend.” 

* * *

The nurse takes Goshiki back and leaves them in the waiting room. Goshiki's body tells enough of a story so Oikawa gives up on keeping details to himself. _The patient's name is Goshiki Tsutomu. We're not related. He's a friend. He was attacked by a vampire. I think he lost a lot of blood._ Oikawa leaves out Atsumu's name; he keeps the nature of their friendship to himself. If they're lucky, the nurse's report will look just like any other vampire attack and not-

Not this fucking mess.

"It shouldn't have gone this far," Iwaizumi says into the quiet of the waiting room; softly, as if speaking to himself. Then, with his head up, eyes fixed on him and so damn apologetic he could _die,_ Iwaizumi goes on, "You weren't supposed to get this _involved._ How hard is it to just plant a single virus? Now look at you."

Oikawa doesn't point out that he's the only person who walked away from this night completely unharmed.

"It was always going to go this far, Iwa-chan."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he snaps back.

It means Oikawa has never been good with the sidelines. It means Iwaizumi should know by now that when Oikawa wants something done he always chooses to do it himself, with whatever tools he has. What better tool to work a vampire, than a living body? And what better tool to offer a strategist than information? Even betraying Goshiki was inevitable.

But how can he say any of that into the waiting room's heavy air? How can he possibly condense it into words?

"You’ve known me the longest.” Their whole lives. “You tell me what it means."

"Blue Hawaiin?"

Oikawa whips his head toward the door. Tendou's slim frame barely occupies a sliver of the doorway and yet his presence fills the room.

In a blink, Iwaizumi is on his feet with hackles raised. He growls, low and warning.

Slowly, Oikawa rises from his chair.

Ushijima nods his head. "Good evening, Tooru."

"Ushijima," Oikawa greets, dizzy with adrenaline. Of course Ushijima is here. If Aoba Johsai has an understanding with police, surely Ushijima does as well.

This is bad.

This is so bad.

Oikawa smiles, and steps around Iwaizumi. "We have a lot to talk about."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've said "Just three more chapters!!" like at least twice but I think for real this time? There are two more chapters? I would like to put out the ending chapters all at once, so it may be a little longer until I post again but I hope it will be worth it!
> 
> Gosh, I am having so much fun writing this fic. It started as just a fun like, mental break from other projects and responsibilities and _look at me now!_ I have no regrets. 
> 
> Thank you everyone for reading, commenting, and coming on this ride with me.


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